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Freeing Up Near-Memory Capacity For Cache Using Compression Techniques In A Flat Hybrid-Memory Architecture

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A technical paper titled “HMComp: Extending Near-Memory Capacity using Compression in Hybrid Memory” was published by researchers at Chalmers University of Technology and ZeroPoint Technologies.

Abstract:

“Hybrid memories, especially combining a first-tier near memory using High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) and a second-tier far memory using DRAM, can realize a large and low cost, high-bandwidth main memory. State-of-the-art hybrid memories typically use a flat hierarchy where blocks are swapped between near and far memory based on bandwidth demands. However, this may cause significant overheads for metadata storage and traffic. While using a fixed-size, near-memory cache and compressing data in near memory can help, precious near-memory capacity is still wasted by the cache and the metadata needed to manage a compressed hybrid memory.

This paper proposes HMComp, a flat hybrid-memory architecture, in which compression techniques free up near-memory capacity to be used as a cache for far memory data to cut down swap traffic without sacrificing any memory capacity. Moreover, through a carefully crafted metadata layout, we show that metadata can be stored in less costly far memory, thus avoiding to waste any near-memory capacity. Overall, HMComp offers a speedup of single-thread performance of up to 22%, on average 13%, and traffic reduction due to swapping of up to 60% and by 41% on average compared to flat hybrid memory designs.”

Find the technical paper here. Published June 2024.

Shao, Qi, Angelos Arelakis, and Per Stenström. “HMComp: Extending Near-Memory Capacity using Compression in Hybrid Memory.” In Proceedings of the 38th ACM International Conference on Supercomputing, pp. 74-84. 2024, Kyoto, Japan. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 11 pages.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3650200.3656612



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