Hardware-Assisted General-Purpose Garbage Collection for Hard Real-Time Systems

Nilsen, Kelvin D. and Schmidt, William J. (1992) Hardware-Assisted General-Purpose Garbage Collection for Hard Real-Time Systems. Technical Report TR92-15, Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University.

Abstract

Hardware-Assisted General-Purpose Garbage Collection for Hard
Real-Time Systems
Kelvin D. Nilsen
William J. Schmidt
Hardware-assisted garbage collection combines the potential of high
average-case allocation rates and memory bandwidth with fast
worst-case allocation, fetch, and store times.  This paper describes
an architecture that allows memory fetch and store operations to
execute, on the average, nearly as fast as traditional memory.
Support for caching garbage-collected memory cells and a protocol
designed to minimize communication between the CPU's cache and memory
allow the system to deliver very high performance.  The architecture is
real-time in that the worst-case time required for a memory fetch or
store is approximately six traditional memory cycles, and the time
required to allocate an object is bounded by a small constant times the
size of the object.  A prototype of the proposed architecture has been
successfully simulated.  Continuing research focuses on measuring the
system's performance under real workloads.


Subjects:
All uncategorized technical reports


ID code:
00000021
Deposited by:
Staff Account on 31 October 1992





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