Transparent threads: resource sharing in SMT processors for high single-thread performance
Gautham K. Dorai, Donald Yeung · 2002
Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) processors achieve high processor throughput at the expense of single-thread performance. This paper investigates resource allocation policies for SMT processors that preserve, as much as possible, the single-thread performance of designated “foreground ” threads, while still permitting other “background ” threads to share resources. Since background threads on such an SMT machine have a near-zero performance impact on foreground threads, we refer to the background threads as transparent threads. Transparent threads are ideal for performing low-priority or non-critical computations, with applications in process scheduling, subordinate multithreading, and online performance monitoring. To realize transparent threads, we propose three mechanisms for maintaining the transparency of background threads: slot prioritization,