Feb 28, 2023. Our HPCA 2005 paper titled "Predicting Inter-Thread Cache Contention on a Chip Multi-Processor Architecture" received HPCA 2023 Test of Time Award. The authors are: Dhruba Chandra, Fei Guo, Seongbeom Kim, and Yan Solihin. The citation:
Contention for the shared cache in a chip multiprocessor (CMP) can have non-uniform impacts on threads of different applications, degrading performance and quality of service. Thus, modeling the impact of this contention is of key importance to processor designers. Until this paper, it had not been well understood what influenced application performance sensitivity to cache sharing, and there had been no simple way to model this contention. This paper demonstrated techniques based on previous work in cache modeling to estimate with great accuracy the impact of inter-thread contention. The models use the isolated L2 cache stack distance or circular sequence profile of each thread, which reveal how thread temporal locality interacts with cache sharing, and the models can be computed with significantly lower overhead than simulating the CMP. This paper has had a great deal of impact since its publication, garnering 746 citations according to Google Scholar as of this writing. It has influenced thoughts on cache partitioning, cache replacement policy, thread scheduling, processor design for datacenters, virtual machine organization, quality of service in memory system design, and other areas. Four patents have been issued citing this paper as prior art in estimating resource contention in memory systems, indicating industry impact.
News coverage:
Staff, Hardware Encryption Developed for New Computer Memory Technology, US News and World Report, May 18, 2011.
Staff, New Memory can Protect Computer Data, UPI, upi.com, May 17, 2011.
Staff, Researchers Developed New Hardware Encryption for New Computer Memory Technology, inSciences, insciences.org (May 17, 2011)
Naina Bami, Selective Encryption to Increase Security Features via i-NVMM, ITPro India, May 19, 2011.
Stewart Mitchell, Selective Encryption to Boost Instant-on Memory, PC Authority, May 19, 2011.
David Gomez, Researchers Develop Hardware Encryption for New Memory Technology, TG Daily, May 18, 2011.
Ellen Messmer, Researchers Claim Memory Encryption Breakthrough, PCWorld (link), May 27, 2011. Also at ComputerWorld (link) and ITWorld (link).
etc.