Title

TOP-PIM: Throughput-Oriented Programmable Processing in Memory

Conference

Published in the Proceedings of the 23rd International Symposium on High-Performance Parallel and Distributed Computing (HPDC'14), June, 2014 (acceptance rate: 21/130 ≈ 16%)

Authors

Dong Ping Zhang, Nuwan Jayasena, Alexander Lyashevsky, Joseph L. Greathouse, Lifan Xu, Michael Ignatowski

Abstract

As computation becomes increasingly limited by data movement and energy consumption, exploiting locality throughout the memory hierarchy becomes critical to continued performance scaling. Moving computation closer to memory presents an opportunity to reduce both energy and data movement overheads. We explore the use of 3D die stacking to move memory-intensive computations closer to memory. This approach to processing in memory addresses some drawbacks of prior research on in-memory computing and is commercially viable in the foreseeable future.

Because 3D stacking provides increased bandwidth, we study throughput-oriented computing using programmable GPU compute units across a broad range of benchmarks, including graph and HPC applications. We also introduce a methodology for rapid design space exploration by analytically predicting performance and energy of in-memory processors based on metrics obtained from execution on today's GPU hardware. Our results show that, on average, viable PIM configurations show moderate performance losses (27%) in return for significant energy efficiency improvements (76% reduction in EDP) relative to a representative mainstream GPU at 22nm technology. At 16nm technology, on average, viable PIM configurations are performance competitive with a representative mainstream GPU (7% speedup) and provide even greater energy efficiency improvements (85% reduction in EDP).

Awards

Nominated for Best Paper, HPDC 2014

Paper

ACM Author-Izer Free Download | ACM | PDF

Presentation

PPTX | PPT | PDF Copyright © ACM 2014. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in HPDC 2014.