Trace-driven simulations for a two-level cache design in open bus systems

Abstract

Two-level cache hierarchies will be a design issue in future high-performance CPUs. In this paper we evaluate various metrics for data cache * designs. We discuss both one- and two-level cache hierarchies. Our target is a new 100+ mips CPU, but the methods are applicable to any cache design. The basis of our work is a new trace-driven, multiprocess cache simulator. The simulator incorporates a simple priority-based scheduler which controls the execution of the processes. The scheduler blocks a process when a system call is executed. A workload consists of a total of 60 processes, distributed among seven unique programs with about nine instances each. We discuss two open bus systems supporting a coherent memory model, Futurebus+ and SCI, as the interconnect system for main memory.