Hardware support for thread synchronisation in an experimental manycore system. (3rd December 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Cilardo, Alessandro; Gagliardi, Mirko; Passaretti, Daniele
• Is Part Of: International journal of grid and utility computing. Volume 11:Number 1(2020)
• Page Start: 62
• Page End: 71
• Publication Date: 2019-12-03
• Subjects: accelerators -- manycore systems -- synchronisation; Electronic data processing -- Distributed processing -- Periodicals; Electronic commerce -- Management -- Computer programs -- Periodicals; 004.605
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1741-847X

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of thread synchronisation in manycore systems. In particular, it considers the open-source GPU-like architecture developed within the MANGO H2020 project. The thread synchronisation hardware relies on a distributed master and on a lightweight control unit to be deployed within the core. It does not rely on memory access for exchanging synchronisation information since it uses hardware-level messages. The solution supports multiple barriers for different application kernels possibly being executed simultaneously. The results for different NoC sizes provide indications about the reduced synchronisation times and area overheads incurred by our solution.