IEMEK Journal of Embedded Systems and Applications (대한임베디드공학회논문지)

Institute of Embedded Engineering of Korea (대한임베디드공학회)
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An Efficient Variable Rearrangement Technique for STT-RAM Based Hybrid Caches

  • Received : 2016.01.27
  • Accepted : 2016.03.28
  • Published : 2016.04.30
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Abstract

The emerging Spin-Transfer Torque RAM (STT-RAM) is a promising component that can be used to improve the efficiency as a result of its high storage density and low leakage power. However, the state-of-the-art STT-RAM is not ready to replace SRAM technology due to the negative effect of its write operations. The write operations require longer latency and more power than the same operations in SRAM. Therefore, a hybrid cache with SRAM and STT-RAM technologies is proposed to obtain the benefits of STT-RAM while minimizing its negative effects by using SRAM. To efficiently use of the hybrid cache, it is important to place write intensive data onto the cache. Such data should be placed on SRAM to minimize the negative effect. Thus, we propose a technique that optimizes placement of data in main memory. It drives the proper combination of advantages and disadvantages for SRAM and STT-RAM in the hybrid cache. As a result of the proposed technique, write intensive data are loaded to SRAM and read intensive data are loaded to STT-RAM. In addition, our technique also optimizes temporal locality to minimize conflict misses. Therefore, it improves performance and energy consumption of the hybrid cache architecture in a certain range.

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References

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