Cache streamization for high performance stream processor

Due to high bandwidth demand on memory system of stream applications, most of stream processors use software-managed streaming memory. However, this memory disadvantages ease of programming, compatibility, and supporting irregular stream access, which hinder the usage of stream processor in broader application domains. Meanwhile, hardware-managed coherent caches overcome these shortcomings of software-managed streaming memory with side-effect due to lack of supporting stream. For this problem, this paper developed a streamization cache whose performance is comparable to streaming memory but is more easy to use. The paper presents the motivation and details of our proposed design, including three stream-specific techniques for cache on data fetch policy, replacement policy and multi-client access. Moreover, a streamization cache instance is implemented in FT64, a 64-bit high performance stream processor. Based on a set of streaming application benchmark, the paper estimates the performance, power consumption and the area cost of the proposed architecture. Results show that these streamization techniques for cache are worthwhile.