A Survey of Techniques for Cache Partitioning in Multicore Processors

Abstract

As the number of on-chip cores and memory demands of applications increase, judicious management of cache resources has become not merely attractive but imperative. Cache partitioning, that is, dividing cache space between applications based on their memory demands, is a promising approach to provide capacity benefits of shared cache with performance isolation of private caches. However, naively partitioning the cache may lead to performance loss, unfairness, and lack of quality-of-service guarantees. It is clear that intelligent techniques are required for realizing the full potential of cache partitioning. In this article, we present a survey of techniques for partitioning shared caches in multicore processors. We categorize the techniques based on important characteristics and provide a bird’s eye view of the field of cache partitioning.