CprE585 Term Project Software Optimizations for Cache Performance

1
CprE585 Term Project Software Optimizations for
Cache Performance

• Bruce RowenhorstLevent Engin

2
Software Optimizations for Cache Performance

• ObjectiveEvaluation of performance improvements
  achieved by C high-level programming language
  level software optimizations using the
  SimpleScalar tool.

3
Software Optimizations for Cache Performance

• DescriptionPerformance improvement evaluation by
  attempting to reduce cache misses using following
  techniques
• Array Merge
• Loop Interchange
• Loop Fusion
• Blocking

4
Software Optimizations for Cache Performance

• Array Merge
• Improve performance by using array of records
  instead of using separate dimensional arrays.

5
Software Optimizations for Cache Performance

• Loop Interchange
• Improve performance by swapping the nested loops
  to access data sequentially instead of
  non-sequential manner

6
Software Optimizations for Cache Performance

• Loop Fusion
• Improve performance by using a single loop to
  perform related calculations instead of using
  separate loops.

7
Software Optimizations for Cache Performance

• Blocking
• Improve performance by maximizing accesses to the
  data in the cache before the data is replaced

8
Software Optimizations for Cache Performance

• Steps used to evaluate each performance
  evaluation method
• Source code generation in C.
• Compilation of source code into SimpleScalar
  executable with GCC.
• Run SimpleScalar simulation and collect data.
• Implement performance improvement in source code
  and repeat steps 2 and 3.
• Compare results of original vs improved
  executables.