CS 6290

Many-core & Interconnect

Milos Prvulovic
Fall 2007

Interconnection Networks
Classification: Shared Medium or Switched

Shared Media Networks
Need arbitration to decide who gets to talk
Arbitration can be centralized or distributed
Centralized not used much for networks
Special arbiter device (or must elect arbiter)
Good performance if arbiter far away? Nah.
Distributed arbitration
Check if media already used (carrier sensing)
If media not used now, start sending
Check if another also sending (collision detection)
If collision, wait for a while and retry
For a while is random (otherwise collisions repeat forever)
Exponential back-off to avoid wasting bandwidth on collisions

Switched Networks
Need switches
Introduces switching overheads
No time wasted on arbitration and collisions
Multiple transfers can be in progress
If they use different links, of course
Circuit or Packet Switching
Circuit switching: end-to-end connections
Reserves links for a connection (e.g. phone network)
Packet switching: each packet routed separately
Links used only when data transferred (e.g. Internet Protocol)

Routing
Shared media has trivial routing (broadcast)
In switched media we can have
Source-based (source specifies route)
Virtual circuits (end-to-end route created)
When connection made, set up route
Switches forward packets along the route
Destination-based (source specifies destination)
Switches must route packet toward destination
Also can be classified into
Deterministic (one route from a source to a destination)
Adaptive (different routes can be used)

Routing Methods for Switches
Store-and-Forward
Switch receives entire packet, then forwards it
If error occurs when forwarding, switch can re-send
Wormhole routing
Packet consists of flits (a few bytes each)
First flit contains header w/ destination address
Switch gets header, decides where to forward
Other flits forwarded as they arrive
Looks like packet worming through network
If an error occurs along the way, sender must re-send
No switch has the entire packet to re-send it

Cut-Through Routing
What happens when link busy?
Header arrives to switch, but outgoing link busy
What do we do with the other flits of the packet?
Wormhole routing: stop the tail when head stops
Now each flit along the way blocks the a link
One busy link creates other busy links => traffic jam
Cut-Through Routing
If outgoing link busy, receive and buffer incoming flits
The buffered flits stay there until link becomes free
When link free, the flits start worming out of the switch
Need packet-sized buffer space in each switch
Wormhole Routing switch needs to buffer only one flit

Routing: Network Latency
Switch Delay
Time from incoming to outgoing link in a switch
Switches
Number of switches along the way
Transfer time
Time to send the packet through a link
Store-and-Forward end-to-end transfer time
(Switches*SwitchDelay)+(TransferTime*(Switches+1))
Wormhole or Cut-Through end-to-end transfer time
(Switches*SwitchDelay) + TransferTime
Much better if there are many switches along the way
See the example on page 811


Switch Technology
What do we want in a switch
Many input and output links
Usually number of input and output links the same
Low contention inside the switch
Best if there is none (only external links cause contention)
Short switching delay
Crossbar
Very low switching delay, no internal contention
Complexity grows as square of number of links
Can not have too many links (e.g. up to 64 in and 64 out)

Switch Technology
What do we want in a switch
Many input and output links
Usually number of input and output links the same
Low contention inside the switch
Best if there is none (only external links cause contention)
Short switching delay
Crossbar
Very low switching delay, no internal contention
Complexity grows as square of number of links
Can not have too many links (e.g. up to 64 in and 64 out)
Omega Network
Build switches with more ports using small crossbars
Lower complexity per link, but longer delay and more contention

Switch Technology

Network Topology

Network Topology
What do we want in a network topology
Many nodes, high bandwidth, low contention, low
latency
Low latency: few switches along any route
For each (src, dest) pair, we choose shortest route
Longest such route over all (src,dst) pairs: network diameter
We want networks with small diameter!
Low contention: high aggregate bandwidth
Divide network into two groups, each with half the nodes
Total bandwidth between groups is bisection bandwidth
Actually, we use the minimum over all such bisections

On-Chip Networks
Well have many cores on-chip
Need switched network to provide bandwidth
Need to map well onto chip surface
E.g. hypercube is not great
Mesh or grid should work well, torus OK too
Limited ports per switch (CPU & 4 neighbors)
All links short (going to neighbors)
Many parallel algorithms map well onto grids
Matrices, grids, etc.

Trouble with shared caches
Private caches OK
Each placed with its own processor
We want a shared cache, too
Fits more data than if broken into private
caches
Private caches replicate data
Dynamically shared
Threads that need more space get more space
But how do we make a shared cache fast


Trouble with shared caches
Private caches OK
Each placed with its own processor
We want a shared cache, too
Fits more data than if broken into private
caches
Private caches replicate data
Dynamically shared
Threads that need more space get more space
But how do we make a shared cache fast


Non-uniform Cache Arch. (NUCA)
Bank
Switch
CPU
Request 0x.3 Request 0x.C

S-NUCA Perormance
Fast access to nearby banks
Slow access to far-away banks
Average better than worst-case


CPU
D-NUCA Solution
A B

D-NUCA Perormance
Fast access to nearby banks
Slow access to far-away banks
Average much better than worst-case
But we keep moving blocks
Lots of power-hungry activity
Need smart policies for block migration
Move blocks less frequently
But get most of the benefit of being able to
move



D-NUCA Issues
Blocks keep moving, how do we find them?
One solution: Use an on-chip directory!
Use direct mapping to assign a home bank
If we dont know where the block is,
ask the home bank
If we move the block, tell the home bank
If we think we know where the block is,
look there. If its been moved, ask home bank