Applications of Thread Prioritization in SMT Processors

Abstract

Previous work in multithreading, and specifically in simultaneous multithreading (SMT), has focused primarily on increasing total instruction throughput. While this focus is sufficient in some application domains, widespread deployment of multithreaded processors will require robust behavior across a variety of platforms. For instance, interactive systems must be concerned with the execution latency of foreground userinterface threads. Multiuser systems must be concerned with fair allocation of throughput among competing users. A multithreaded processor that seeks solely to maximize throughput will favor efficient threads at the expense of any potential latency or fairness