Patent · US Expired

Multi-threaded processing system and method for scheduling the execution of threads based on data received from a cache memory

US6578065B1 · kind B1 · utility

16Cited by
13References
22Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateSep 23, 1999
Grant dateJun 10, 2003
Priority date
Expiry dateSep 23, 2019

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F9/3851
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A system and method for controlling the scheduling of threads in a multi-thread processor system. The multi-thread processor system has a multi-thread processor, a main memory, a cache memory, and a thread scheduler. Information is sent from the cache memory to the thread scheduler for determining which thread the processor is going to execute. The thread scheduler calculates or maintains a figure of merit for each thread executing on the processor. The figure of merit determines which thread to switch to when the current or previous thread has a long latency. The figure of merit define the execution environment as measured by the performance of the cache memory. The figure of merit can be the owner of a particular thread, the number of data lines accessed by a particular thread which resides in the cache, the number of times a particular thread has hit in the cache over a specified time interval, the thread that installed the data or the thread that was used most recently.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.