Enhancing an x86_64 multi-core architecture with data-flow execution support

Abstract

Future exascale machines will require multi--/ many-core architectures able to efficiently run multi-threaded applications. Data-flow execution models have demonstrated to be capable of improving execution performance by limiting the synchronization overhead. This paper proposes to augment cores with a minimalistic set of hardware units and dedicated instructions that allow efficiently scheduling the execution of threads on the basis of data-flow principles. Experimental results show performance improvements of the system when compared with other techniques (e.g., OpenMP, Cilk).