Exploring the potential of heterogeneous von neumann/dataflow execution models
Tony Nowatzki, Vinay Gangadhar, Karthikeyan Sankaralingam · 2015
General purpose processors (GPPs), from small inorder designs to many-issue out-of-order, incur large power overheads which must be addressed for future technology generations. Major sources of overhead include structures which dynamically extract the data-dependence graph or maintain precise state. Considering irregular workloads, current specialization approaches either heavily curtail performance, or provide simply too little benefit. Interestingly, well known explicit-dataflow architectures eliminate these overheads by directly executing the data-dependence graph and eschewing instruction-precise recoverability. However, even after decades of research, dataflow architectures have yet to come into prominence as a solution. We attribute this to a lack of effective control speculation and the latency overhead of explicit communication, which is crippling for certain codes.