Systems With Predictable Caching

These days machines would probably prefer cache, but for 1963 this was a reasonably acurate and remarkably concise prophesy for computer memory. Current computer architectures rely heavily on the use of cache memory. Integrated with the processor on a single large chip, caches enable the processor to operate at high speed. Most instructions and data can be rapidly accessed from the caches instead of from the main memory which is usually at least ten times slower. On-chip caches have grown steadily in size over the last decade, and now represent a significant proportion of the cost and power consumption of the processor chip.

Although it is normally the case that large caches offer better performance than small ones, it is also clear that the performance is not directly related to the size of the cache. Also, due to the trend towards optimising for averages cases to improve performance, it is far more difficult to reason about the performance of computer systems, and to give an accurate prediction of the performance of specific programs.

David May, Dan Page, James Irwin, and Henk L Muller. Microcaches. Technical Report CSTR-98-010, Department of Computer Science, University of Bristol, October 1998. Gzipped PostScript: 77768 bytes.

Henk Muller, David May, James Irwin, and Dan Page. Novel Caches for Predictable Computing. Technical Report CSTR-98-011, Department of Computer Science, University of Bristol, October 1998. Gzipped PostScript: 54354 bytes.

• Compiler
  • A users guide to the PRE compiler.
  • The PRE compiler source language.
  • The PRE compiler target language.
  • Stack frame layout diagram.
• Assembler
  • A users guide to the PREASM assembler.
  • The PREASM assembler source language.
  • The PREASM assembler target language.
• Linker
  • A users guide to the PREOBJ linker.
  • The PREOBJ linker source language.
  • The PREOBJ linker target language.
• Machine
  • A users guide to the PREBIN machine.
  • The PREBIN machine source language.
  • A guide to the PREBIN machine architecture.
  • Screenshots of the PREBIN machine in action.
• Performance
  • A users guide to the performance farmer.
  • A users guide to the script generator.
  • An interactive demonstration of the GraphNavigator.
• Misc
  • The original project proposal.
  • The project to-do list.
  • A BibTeX formatted list of related papers.