Evaluation of a "Stall" Cache: An Efficient Restricted On-chip Instruction Cache

Klaus Erik Schauser, Krste Asanović, David A. Patterson and Edward H. Frank

EECS Department
University of California, Berkeley
Technical Report No. UCB/CSD-91-641
July 1991

http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1991/CSD-91-641.pdf

In this report we compare the cost and performance of a new kind of restricted instruction cache architecture -- the stall cache -- against several other conventional cache architectures. The stall cache minimizes the size of an on-chip instruction cache by caching only those instructions whose instruction fetch phase collides with the memory access phase of a preceding load or store instruction.

Many existing machines provide a single cycle external cache memory. Our results show that, under this assumption, the stall cache always outperforms an equivalent sized on-chip instruction cache, reducing external memory access stalls by approximately 10%. In addition we present results for a system using an on-chip data cache, and for one with a double width data bus and short instruction prefetch buffer.


BibTeX citation:

@techreport{Schauser:CSD-91-641,
    Author = {Schauser, Klaus Erik and Asanović, Krste and Patterson, David A. and Frank, Edward H.},
    Title = {Evaluation of a "Stall" Cache: An Efficient Restricted On-chip Instruction Cache},
    Institution = {EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley},
    Year = {1991},
    Month = {Jul},
    URL = {http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1991/6391.html},
    Number = {UCB/CSD-91-641},
    Abstract = {In this report we compare the cost and performance of a new kind of restricted instruction cache architecture -- the stall cache -- against several other conventional cache architectures. The stall cache minimizes the size of an on-chip instruction cache by caching only those instructions whose instruction fetch phase collides with the memory access phase of a preceding load or store instruction. <p>Many existing machines provide a single cycle external cache memory. Our results show that, under this assumption, the stall cache always outperforms an equivalent sized on-chip instruction cache, reducing external memory access stalls by approximately 10%. In addition we present results for a system using an on-chip data cache, and for one with a double width data bus and short instruction prefetch buffer.}
}

EndNote citation:

%0 Report
%A Schauser, Klaus Erik
%A Asanović, Krste
%A Patterson, David A.
%A Frank, Edward H.
%T Evaluation of a "Stall" Cache: An Efficient Restricted On-chip Instruction Cache
%I EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley
%D 1991
%@ UCB/CSD-91-641
%U http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1991/6391.html
%F Schauser:CSD-91-641