Abstract. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach to guide tile size selection by employing analytical models to limit empirical search within a subspace of the full search space. Two analytical models are used together: 1) an existing conservative model, based on the data footprint of a tile, which ignores intra-tile cache block replacement, and 2) an aggressive new model that assumes optimal cache block replacement within a tile. Experimental results on multiple platforms demonstrate the practical effectiveness of the approach by reducing the search space for the optimal tile size by 1,307× to 11,879× for an Intel Core-2-Quad system; 358× to 1,978× for an Intel Nehalem system; and 45× to 1,142× for an IBM Power7 system. The execution of rectangularly tiled code tuned by a search of the subspace identified by our model achieves speed-ups of up to 1.40× (Intel Core-2 Quad), 1.28× (Nehalem) and 1.19× (Power 7) relative to the best possible square tile sizes on these different processor architectures. We also demonstrate the integration of the analytical bounds with existing search optimization algorithms. Our approach not only reduces the total search time from Nelder-Mead Simplex and Parallel Rank Ordering methods by factors of up to 4.95× and 4.33×, respectively, but also finds better tile sizes that yield higher performance in tuned tiled code.
Emerging computer architectures will feature drastically decreased flops/byte (ratio of peak processing rate to memory bandwidth) as highlighted by recent studies on Exascale architectural trends. Further, flops are getting cheaper, while the energy cost of data movement is increasingly dominant. The understanding and characterization of data locality properties of computations is critical in order to guide efforts to enhance data locality.Reuse distance analysis of memory address traces is a valuable tool to perform data locality characterization of programs. A single reuse distance analysis can be used to estimate the number of cache misses in a fully associative LRU cache of any size, thereby providing estimates on the minimum bandwidth requirements at different levels of the memory hierarchy to avoid being bandwidth bound. However, such an analysis only holds for the particular execution order that produced the trace. It cannot estimate potential improvement in data locality through dependence-preserving transformations that change the execution schedule of the operations in the computation.In this article, we develop a novel dynamic analysis approach to characterize the inherent locality properties of a computation and thereby assess the potential for data locality enhancement via dependencepreserving transformations. The execution trace of a code is analyzed to extract a Computational-Directed Acyclic Graph (CDAG) of the data dependences. The CDAG is then partitioned into convex subsets, and the convex partitioning is used to reorder the operations in the execution trace to enhance data locality. The approach enables us to go beyond reuse distance analysis of a single specific order of execution of the operations of a computation in characterization of its data locality properties. It can serve a valuable role in identifying promising code regions for manual transformation, as well as assessing the effectiveness of compiler transformations for data locality enhancement. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach using a number of benchmarks, including case studies where the potential shown by the analysis is exploited to achieve lower data movement costs and better performance.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.