# Abstract/Details

## Quantifying locality

1993 1993

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### Abstract (summary)

A direct measure of the locality characteristics of reference streams is presented that quantifies the concepts of locality. The new locality definition unifies the traditional concepts of temporal and spatial locality and represents the probability that the first occurrence of an access to a memory location a distance of s away from the current location occurs within the next $1\over 2$d to d references. The locality definition has useful properties that allow insight to be gained into the trace structures that correspond to various locality features.

The locality of reference streams is shown to be a meaningful metric by which the interaction of reference streams and locality dependent subsystems can be quantified and visualized. Applications of this technique explored in this work include trace characterization, algorithm classification, cache parameter estimation, workload profiling, benchmark evaluation, and reference model evaluation. An examination of the locality characteristics at each level in the memory hierarchy reveals that the locality characteristics of reference streams account for the general architecture and design decisions common at each level.

The locality characteristics of the UNIX SVR4 monolithic operating system and MACH 3.0 microkernel operating system are contrasted. Also, the differences in locality between references generated by the SPARC RISC processor and the i486 CISC processor are quantified.

### Indexing (details)

Subject
Computer science;
Electrical engineering
Classification
0984: Computer science
0544: Electrical engineering
Identifier / keyword
Applied sciences; reference streams; trace structures
Title
Quantifying locality
Author
Grimsrud, Knut Stener
Number of pages
175
Publication year
1993
Degree date
1993
School code
0022
Source
DAI-B 54/09, Dissertation Abstracts International
Place of publication
Ann Arbor
Country of publication
United States
Archibald, James K.
University/institution
Brigham Young University
University location
United States -- Utah
Degree
Ph.D.
Source type
Dissertations & Theses
Language
English
Document type
Dissertation/Thesis
Dissertation/thesis number
9406304
ProQuest document ID
304041123