Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!oliveb!Ricerca!lance
From: lance@Ricerca.orc.olivetti.com (Lance Berc)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: i860 cache flushing
Message-ID: <39485@oliveb.olivetti.com>
Date: 19 Mar 89 02:29:52 GMT
Sender: news@oliveb.olivetti.com
Reply-To: lance@orc.olivetti.com (Lance Berc)
Organization: Olivetti Research Center, Menlo Park, CA
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Distribution:

As has been said, the i860 has two on-chip virtual caches (4k I + 8k
D) and a 64 entry TLB, all of which need to be invalidated when
context switching (and sometimes when the memory map is changed). The
D-cache has to be flushed as well as invalidated (code is treated as
immutable - self modifying code won't work unless it lives in
non-cached pages).

Intel estimates that at 33MHz flushing the D-cache takes on average
30usec (30% - 50% dirty) and 60usec worst case. I believe that these
numbers assume no wait-state memory (fastest possible 5 2 2 2 CPU to
memory write cycles).

I'd be interested in seeing some numbers on the frequency of both
context switching and interrupt handling in `typical' state-of-the-art
machines under some sort of well-defined load (such as compiles using
local disks under Unix on Sun-3s,4s, MIPS boxes, etc). This might help
determine just how important raw context switch times are.

Fast context switches are important, but it seems that standard Unix
time quanta are not shrinking as the amount of work done per quantum
increases. So maybe the percentage of CPU time spent context switching
versus the amount of time spent doing `useful' work is becoming small
enough that the raw context switch time is becoming less significant.

The i860 seems to favor using silicon to gain sheer straight-line
speed at the expense of some performance in the curves. Sounds like a
good trade off to me, but it depends on where you drive...

lance
lance@orc.olivetti.com
(415) 496-6200
Lance Berc                lance@orc.olivetti.com       Beer as an alternate
Olivetti Research Center  lance%orc.uucp@unix.sri.com       currency!
Menlo Park, California    (415) 496-6248
< These opinions bear no resemblance to those of Ing. C. Olivetti & C. SpA. >