A Comparative Analysis on the Impact of Bank Contention in STT-MRAM and SRAM Based LLCs

Spin Transfer Torque Magnetic RAM (STT-MRAM) is being extensively considered as a promising replacement for Last Level Caches (LLC), due to its high density, low leakage and non-volatility. However, writes to STT-MRAM are energy intensive and have a high latency. While the high dynamic energy consumption during writes can be compensated by the low static energy consumption, the high latency results in performance degradation. This work shows that in contrast to SRAM-based LLCs, the performance degradation for STT-MRAM is primarily due to bank contention, when trying to satisfy a read request while the bank is being written. We holistically explore the effects of cache banking and cache contention on energy and performance in the LLC of mobile multicore systems, with in-order cores or with out-of-order cores. The detail of the analysis is enabled by highly accurate cache models, based on a 28nm SRAM industry compiler, and an in-house developed STT-MRAM compiler, which generates full STT-MRAM macro designs with silicon-validated MTJ stack and complete parasitic extraction at the 28nm node. Our results show that there is a clear difference in the energy-performance optimal banking configuration between STT-MRAM caches and SRAM caches. These low contention STT-MRAM cache designs with the optimal number of banks save at least 60% cache energy while losing at most single digit percentages in system performance compared to SRAM cache designs. This show an increased potential of using STT-MRAM as a replacement for SRAM in an LLC.