MVC: Enabling Fully Coherent Multi-Data-Views through the Memory Hierarchy with Processing in Memory

Abstract

Fusing computation and memory through Processing-in-Memory (PIM) provides a radical solution to the memory wall problem by minimizing communication overheads for data-intensive tasks, leading to a revolutionary shift in computer architecture. Although PIM has demonstrated promising results at different layers of the memory hierarchy, few studies have explored integrating compute memories into the memory management system, specifically in relation to coherence protocol. This paper presents MVC, a framework that leverages existing coherence protocols to enable fully coherent views throughout the memory hierarchy. By introducing coherent views, which are user-defined compact representations of conventional data structures, MVC can minimize data movement and harness the reusability of PIM output. The locality-aware MVC views significantly enhance the performance and energy efficiency of various irregular workloads.