Redcache: Reduced Dram Caching

Adapting in-package caching to run-time characteristics of user applications seems a promising approach to improve bandwidth efficiency and performance. However, fine-grained cache block monitoring and adaptation are often impractical due to the significant bandwidth and energy overheads. This paper proposes RedCache that enables fine-grained adaptation at run-time via reduced DRAM caching. Two adaptive parameters are proposed to start and stop caching for individual blocks. Architectural techniques and DRAM specific control mechanisms are proposed to alleviate overheads. Our simulation results indicate averages of 31% and 24% performance improvements over the state-of-the-art Alloy and Bear cache architectures. Respective energy savings over the same baselines are 29% and 18% on average.