Interaction Of Cache Coherency And Media Access Protocols In The Optically Interconnected Distributed Memory Environment
J. Chu, Kwan AuYeung, PATRICK W. DOWD · 2005
The objective of this paper is to develop a tool to study the interaction between the cache coherence protocol and the media access protocol for a multiprocessor system in a wavelength division multiplexed starcoupled configuration. This simulation is modular for easy swapping of component functional specifications, and inter-module communication is achieved through a message passing facility. By writing simulations in this way, it is faster and more reliable to create simulations for comparison purposes. This tool is applied to the simulation of an Optically Interconnected DbtributedSharedMemory system. It employs aphotonic network using Wavelength Division Multiple Access to create multiple channels on a single optical fiber as an interconnection network in support of memory accesses. This paper considers two variants of a directory basedcachecoherenceprotocol. A synthetic address trace generation model which is independent of the system architecture and with great flexibility in characterizing various workloads is used as an input to the system.