SHF: Small: Non-Uniformity--Centric Program Optimizations for Dynamic Computations on Chip Multiprocessors

This research project is motivated by a growing gap between trends in processor development and needs of modern data-intensive dynamic applications ranging from differential equation solvers to data mining tools to particle dynamics simulations, playing an essential role in science and humanity. These applications feature tremendous amounts of data accesses as well as complex patterns in data accesses or control flows. The properties make them a great challenge for modern processors which are evolving exactly opposite to these applications' needs: A chip's aggregate computing power is rapidly outgrowing memory bandwidth; the rise of throughput-oriented manycores makes system throughput even more sensitive to irregular computations. The new paradigm of program optimizations, non-uniformity--centric, distinctively takes the non-uniform inter-core relations in modern systems as the first-order constraint for program optimizations.

The proposed framework named PipeReg is a new way to reorganize data accesses and threads during run time to reduce the influence of irregular computations on the throughput of massively parallel processors. In addition, a novel kind of program transformations, neighborhood-aware, exploiting non-uniform interactions among threads in on-chip storage in a multi-socket multicore system. Together, the two techniques will synergistically remove some important barriers for data-intensive dynamic applications to tap into the full power of future computing systems. The outcome from this research will provide essential support for enhancing the computing efficiency of data-intensive dynamic applications in the era of heterogeneous parallel systems. Because of the critical roles of these applications, this research will help foster sustained advancement in science, commerce, health, and other areas.