Clustering on the move.
S. Roos, Henk Corporaal, R. Lamberts · 2002
Clustering is growing in popularity among architecture designers because it reduces cycle time and provides a solution for complexity problems of wide-issue microarchitectures. In this paper we analyze the effect clustering has on the number of cycles needed to execute a program on transport triggered architectures (TTAs). The TTA configurations used in the experiments are chosen in a way that the results of the experiments are also applicable to other ILP architectures. This paper is unique because it discriminates between three factors that cause the performance effect of clustering, and therefore offers a good understanding of the mechanisms that cause this effect. The first factor is the partitioned register file, which has a relatively small effect that becomes negligible for large architectures. The lion share of the performance effect is caused by the restrictions on the inter-cluster communication. The third factor is the partitioning of the local communication network, which is especially important for small architectures.