A Generational Algorithm to Multiprocessor Cache Coherence

In view of the growing gap between processor speeds and net work latency, it becomes increasingly expensive to maintain multi-processor cache consistency via run-time inter processor communication. Software-Controlled cache coher ence schemes have the advantage of simplified hardware and the reduction of inter-processor communication traffic. Among previously proposed software-based schemes, those based on the concept of version/timestamp show the most aggressive performance potential. Unfortunately these methods have several implementation and performance prob lems that prevent them from being practical implementation choices. In this paper, we discuss these problems and describe a generational cache coherence algorithm that elim inates all of these problems. Moreover, the new algorithm can exploit inter-level temporal locality of parallel programs with significantly less hardware support.

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