Report Number: CSL-TR-91-470
Institution: Stanford University, Computer Systems Laboratory
Title: Writes caches as an alternative to write buffers
Author: Bray, Brian K.
Author: Flynn, Michael J.
Date: April 1991
Abstract: Write buffers help unbind one level of a memory hierarchy from the next, thus write buffers are used to reduce write stalls. Write buffers are used in write-through systems so that writes can occur at the rate the cache can handle them, but write buffers don't reduce the number of writes, or cluster writes for block transfers. A write cache is a cache that uses an allocate on write miss, write-back, no allocate on read miss strategy. A write cache tries to reduce the total number of writes (write traffic) to the next level by taking advantage of the temporal locality of writes. A write cache also groups writes for block transfers by taking advantage of the spatial locality of writes. We have found that small write caches can significantly reduce the write traffic to the first write-back level after the processor's register set. Systems that would benefit from reduced write traffic to the first write-back level would benefit from using a write cache instead of a write buffer. The temporal and spatial locality of writes is very important in determining what organization the write cache should have.
http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/csl/tr/91/470/CSL-TR-91-470.pdf