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Micro-thread (multi-core)
Micro-threads for multi-core and many-cores processors is a mechanism to hide memory latency similar to multi-threading architectures. However, it is done in software for multi-core processors such as the Cell Broadband Engine to dynamically hide latencies that occur due to memory latency or I/O operations. Introduction Micro-threading is a software-based threading framework that creates small threads inside multi-core or many-core processors. Each core may have two or more tiny threads that utilize its idle time. It is like hyper-threading invented by Intel or the general multi-threading architecture in modern micro-processors. It enables the existence of more than one thread running on the same core without performing expensive context switching to system's main memory, even if this core does not have multi-threading hardware logic. Micro-threads mainly hide memory latency inside each core by over lapping computations with memory requests. The main difference between micro-thread ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Memory Latency
''Memory latency'' is the time (the latency) between initiating a request for a byte or word in memory until it is retrieved by a processor. If the data are not in the processor's cache, it takes longer to obtain them, as the processor will have to communicate with the external memory cells. Latency is therefore a fundamental measure of the speed of memory: the less the latency, the faster the reading operation. Latency should not be confused with memory bandwidth, which measures the throughput of memory. Latency can be expressed in clock cycles or in time measured in nanoseconds. Over time, memory latencies expressed in clock cycles have been fairly stable, but they have improved in time.Crucial Technology, "Speed ''vs.'' Latency: Why CAS latency isn't an accurate measure of memory performance/ref> See also * Burst mode (computing) * CAS latency * Multi-channel memory architecture * Interleaved memory In computing, interleaved memory is a design which compensates for the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
