Emulating Write-Allocate on a No-Write-Allocate Cache

Report ID: TR-459-94

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Author: Appel, Andrew W.

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Date: 1994-06-00

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Pages: 2

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Download Formats: |Postscript|

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Abstract:

A cache write-miss policy of write-allocate leads to better performance for many programs than a policy of no-write-allocate. I show a compiling technique to emulate a write-allocate policy even on a no-write-allocate machine, if that machine has non-blocking cache read misses (e.g. DEC Alpha 21064). The trick is to pre-fetch garbage before the write, so that the cache line will be allocated and the write will hit the cache. Measurements show a factor-of-1.2 improvement in execution time.