A Method for Improving Memory System Performance Exploring Delinquent Loads

In recent years, the performance gap between microprocessor speed and main memory latency has been increasing. This problem prevents higher throughput improvements and is well-known in the literature as the Memory-Wall Problem (MWP). This paper proposes a new method to minimize the MWP effect by means of [re-computation]. The basic idea is to replace frequently cache-missed loads (or delinquent loads) with a piece of code that regenerates the missed value (recomputation code). This method can be used to reduce the number of main memory accesses and consequently alliviate the MWP. From the experiments, one can obtain up to 45.3% reduction on computation time for SPEC2000 benchmark programs.