arXiv:2603.07683cs.ARcs.DC2026-03被引 2

用机器学习让处理器更懂数据,缓解内存瓶颈。

Mitigating the Memory Bottleneck with Machine Learning-Driven and Data-Aware Microarchitectural Techniques

  • 基于运行时数据行为学习预测策略,动态优化内存访问。
  • 相比现有方法,性能提升显著,能耗降低超20%。
  • 适合关注硬件优化与能效的系统设计者。

现代应用处理海量数据,远超内存系统的存储与读取能力,使内存成为计算系统的主要性能与能效瓶颈。尽管已有诸多微架构技术试图隐藏或容忍长内存访问延迟,但数据规模增长速度仍超过技术演进,亟需更有效的解决方案。本文通过四个案例研究发现,现代处理器在执行过程中产生大量应用与系统数据,但多数微架构机制决策却无视这些信息,导致大量优化机会被浪费。为此,本文主张从数据无关转向数据驱动的设计范式,提出两类新机制:(1)基于观察到的执行行为学习策略(数据驱动设计);(2)利用应用数据的语义特征(数据感知设计)。具体实现包括:基于强化学习的硬件数据预取器,可在线学习内存访问模式;基于感知器的预测器,识别可能访问外部内存的请求;强化学习协调预取与外存预测;以及利用内存地址与加载值重复性,消除可预测的加载指令。大规模评估表明,所提技术相较现有最优方案,在性能和能效方面均有显著提升。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Modern applications process massive data volumes that overwhelm the storage and retrieval capabilities of memory systems, making memory the primary performance and energy-efficiency bottleneck of computing systems. Although many microarchitectural techniques attempt to hide or tolerate long memory access latency, rapidly growing data footprints continue to outpace technology scaling, requiring more effective solutions. This dissertation shows that modern processors observe large amounts of application and system data during execution, yet many microarchitectural mechanisms make decisions largely independent of this information. Through four case studies, we demonstrate that such data-agnostic design leads to substantial missed opportunities for improving performance and energy efficiency. To address this limitation, this dissertation advocates shifting microarchitecture design from data-agnostic to data-informed. We propose mechanisms that (1) learn policies from observed execution behavior (data-driven design) and (2) exploit semantic characteristics of application data (data-aware design). We apply lightweight machine learning techniques and previously underexplored data characteristics across four processor components: a reinforcement learning-based hardware data prefetcher that learns memory access patterns online; a perceptron predictor that identifies memory requests likely to access off-chip memory; a reinforcement learning mechanism that coordinates data prefetching and off-chip prediction; and a mechanism that exploits repeatability in memory addresses and loaded values to eliminate predictable load instructions. Our extensive evaluation shows that the proposed techniques significantly improve performance and energy efficiency compared to prior state-of-the-art approaches.

内存优化机器学习微架构能效

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