From: Fernando Mato Mira
Subject: Re: hardware garbage collection tech report
Date:
Message-ID: <1t06o8$1as@disuns2.epfl.ch>
This has probably been announced already, but i didn't see it here.
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Hardware-Assisted General-Purpose Garbage Collection for Hard
Real-Time Systems
Helvin D. Nilsen
William J. Schmidt
ABSTRACT
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 the 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 prottype of the proposed architecture has
been successfully simulated. Continuing research focuses on measuring
the system's performance under real workloads.
EXCERP
...there is considerable resistance in the garbage collection
community to hardware support for garbage collection ... Recent
history has taught that special-purpose architectures such as Lisp
machines cannot easily compete in the free market with mass-marketed
general-purpose systems...
ftp.cs.iastate.edu:pub/kelvin/isutr92-15.ps
·····@cmu.edu /o)\
\(o/
--
Fernando D. Mato Mira
Computer Graphics Lab "There is only one Language
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and McCarthy is its prophet"
········@di.epfl.ch
FAX : +41 (21) 693 - 5328
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