| Publication Title: |
Using Software-Extended Architectures for Software Simultaneous Multithreading |
| Publication Author: |
Witchel, Emmett |
| Additional Authors: |
Frans Kaashoek |
| LCS Document Number: |
MIT-LCS-TR-878 |
| Publication Date: |
12-23-2002 |
| LCS Group: |
Parallel and Distributed Operating Systems |
| Additional URL: |
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| Abstract: |
| A software-extended architecture (SEA) enhances a hardware
architecture by placing a high-performance dynamic instruction-set
translator between the application binary and the processor,
improving processor utilization and enabling new functionality with no
changes to either the processor or the binaries. Our prototype
implementation of a software-extended Alpha 21164 can provide new
system functionality while adding only 1%-30% to the running time of
an application. Using this prototype, we have implemented software
simultaneous multithreading (SSMT), a new software technique for
allowing programs to make greater use of the processor pipeline. SSMT
merges instruction streams from independent processes , in order to
increase instruction-level parallelism. Experiments with SSMT on t he
software-extended Alpha 21164 show that processor throughput can be
improved by up to 30% on real programs, despite the small number of
issue slots on this processor. |
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