Designing Memory Consistency Models for Shared-Memory Multiprocessors (1993)
| Citations: | 51 - 8 self |
BibTeX
@TECHREPORT{Adve93designingmemory,
author = {Sarita V. Adve},
title = {Designing Memory Consistency Models for Shared-Memory Multiprocessors},
institution = {},
year = {1993}
}
Years of Citing Articles
Bookmark
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
OpenURL
Abstract
The memory consistency model (or memory model) of a shared-memory multiprocessor system influences both the performance and the programmability of the system. The simplest and most intuitive model for programmers, sequential consistency, restricts the use of many performance-enhancing optimizations exploited by uniprocessors. For higher performance, several alternative models have been proposed. However, many of these are hardware-centric in nature and difficult to program. Further, the multitude of many seemingly unrelated memory models inhibits portability. We use a 3P criteria of programmability, portability, and performance to assess memory models, and find current models lacking in one or more of these criteria. This thesis establishes a unifying framework for reasoning about memory models that leads to models that adequately satisfy the 3P criteria. The first contribution of this thesis is a programmer-centric methodology, called sequential consistency normal form (SCNF), for specifying memory models. This methodology is based on the observation that performance enhancing optimizations can be allowed without violating sequential consistency if the system is given some information about the program. An SCNF model is a contract between the system and the programmer, where the system guarantees both high performance and sequential consistency only if the programmer provides certain information about the program. Insufficient information gives lower performance, but incorrect information
