Performance Analysis of Cache Memories

Abstract

Using the Independent Reference assumption to model program behavior, the performance of different buffer organizations (Fully Associative, Direct Mapping, Set Associative. and Sector) are analyzed (1) The expressions for their fault rate are derived To show more explicitly the dependence of the fault rate on the factors that affect it, distribution-free upper bounds on fault rates are computed for the Direct Mapping, Set Associative, and Sector buffers The use of such bounds is illustrated in the case of the Direct Mapping buffer (2) The performance of the buffers for FIFO and Random Replacement are shown to be identical (3) It is possible to restructure programs to take advantage of the basic organization of the buffers The effect of such restructuring is quantified for the Direct Mapping buffer It is shown that the performance of the Direct Mapping buffer under near-optimal restructuring is comparable to the performance of the Fully Associative buffer Further, the effect of this restructuring is shown to be potentially stronger than that of buffer replacement algorithms. © 1978, ACM. All rights reserved.