Conflict graph based allocation of static objects to memory banks
Peter Keyngnaert, Bart Demoen, Bjorn De Sutter, Bruno De Bus, Koen De Bosschere · Lirias · 2001
Several architectures, in particular those specifically designed for digital signal processing, have a memory structure that consists of a number of banks with different characteristics (waitstate, size, ...). There may also exist constraints on the accessibility of these banks, as some bank combinations can be accessed in parallel, while others can not. As memory access conflicts lead to pipeline stalls, the assignment of the data objects of a program to the set of memory banks is crucial with respect to a program's execution speed. Programmers usually do the assignment of the static objects manually. We present a method to automate this process at/post link-time, as the linker is the first moment at which both the entire program as well as the target architecture's characteristics are fully known. Based upon statistics drawn from an execution trace of the program, an ordering of conflicts is derived according to the possible execution time penalties they generate. By allocating the objects of those conflicts that have the most negative impact on the program execution time first, a decent allocation can be derived automatically. 1