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202004261306373620rohit Engg Multi Threaded

Multithreading is a technique that allows a CPU to execute multiple threads concurrently by sharing core resources. There are three main types of multithreading: interleaved/temporal which switches between threads on long latency events, coarse-grained which switches on blocked events, and simultaneous multithreading which issues instructions from multiple threads each cycle to better utilize superscalar resources. The goal is to increase throughput by executing multiple threads in parallel to hide latency and improve core utilization.

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33 views4 pages

202004261306373620rohit Engg Multi Threaded

Multithreading is a technique that allows a CPU to execute multiple threads concurrently by sharing core resources. There are three main types of multithreading: interleaved/temporal which switches between threads on long latency events, coarse-grained which switches on blocked events, and simultaneous multithreading which issues instructions from multiple threads each cycle to better utilize superscalar resources. The goal is to increase throughput by executing multiple threads in parallel to hide latency and improve core utilization.

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bluesoul
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Multi-threaded Architecture

In computer architecture, multithreading is the ability of a central processing


unit (CPU) (or a single core in a multi-core processor) to provide multiple threads
of execution concurrently, supported by the operating system. This approach
differs from multiprocessing. In a multithreaded application, the threads share the
resources of a single or multiple cores, which include the computing units,
the CPU caches, and the translation lookaside buffer (TLB).
Where multiprocessing systems include multiple complete processing units in one
or more cores, multithreading aims to increase utilization of a single core by
using thread-level parallelism, as well as instruction-level parallelism. As the two
techniques are complementary, they are sometimes combined in systems with
multiple multithreading CPUs and with CPUs with multiple multithreading cores.
The multithreading paradigm has become more popular as efforts to further
exploit instruction-level parallelism have stalled since the late 1990s. This allowed
the concept of throughput computing to re-emerge from the more specialized field
of transaction processing. Even though it is very difficult to further speed up a
single thread or single program, most computer systems are actually multitasking
among multiple threads or programs. Thus, techniques that improve the throughput
of all tasks result in overall performance gains.

Two major techniques for throughput computing


are multithreading and multiprocessing.
Advantages
If a thread gets a lot of cache misses, the other threads can continue taking
advantage of the unused computing resources, which may lead to faster overall
execution, as these resources would have been idle if only a single thread were
executed. Also, if a thread cannot use all the computing resources of the CPU
(because instructions depend on each other's result), running another thread may
prevent those resources from becoming idle.
Disadvantages
Multiple threads can interfere with each other when sharing hardware resources
such as caches or translation lookaside buffers (TLBs). As a result, execution times
of a single thread are not improved and can be degraded, even when only one
thread is executing, due to lower frequencies or additional pipeline stages that are
necessary to accommodate thread-switching hardware.
Overall efficiency varies; Intel claims up to 30% improvement with its Hyper-
Threading Technology,[1] while a synthetic program just performing a loop of non-
optimized dependent floating-point operations actually gains a 100% speed
improvement when run in parallel. On the other hand, hand-tuned assembly
language programs using MMX or AltiVec extensions and performing data pre-
fetches (as a good video encoder might) do not suffer from cache misses or idle
computing resources. Such programs therefore do not benefit from hardware
multithreading and can indeed see degraded performance due to contention for
shared resources.

Types of multithreading
Interleaved/Temporal multithreading
Coarse-grained multithreading
The simplest type of multithreading occurs when one thread runs until it is blocked
by an event that normally would create a long-latency stall. Such a stall might be a
cache miss that has to access off-chip memory, which might take hundreds of CPU
cycles for the data to return. Instead of waiting for the stall to resolve, a threaded
processor would switch execution to another thread that was ready to run. Only
when the data for the previous thread had arrived, would the previous thread be
placed back on the list of ready-to-run threads.
For example:

1. Cycle i: instruction j from thread A is issued.


2. Cycle i + 1: instruction j + 1 from thread A is issued.
3. Cycle i + 2: instruction j + 2 from thread A is issued, which is a load
instruction that misses in all caches.
4. Cycle i + 3: thread scheduler invoked, switches to thread B.
5. Cycle i + 4: instruction k from thread B is issued.
6. Cycle i + 5: instruction k + 1 from thread B is issued.
Conceptually, it is similar to cooperative multi-tasking used in real-time operating
systems, in which tasks voluntarily give up execution time when they need to wait
upon some type of the event. This type of multithreading is known as block,
cooperative or coarse-grained multithreading.
Interleaved multithreading
The purpose of interleaved multithreading is to remove all data dependency stalls
from the execution pipeline. Since one thread is relatively independent from other
threads, there is less chance of one instruction in one pipelining stage needing an
output from an older instruction in the pipeline. Conceptually, it is similar
to preemptive multitasking used in operating systems; an analogy would be that the
time slice given to each active thread is one CPU cycle.
For example:

1. Cycle i + 1: an instruction from thread B is issued.


2. Cycle i + 2: an instruction from thread C is issued.
This type of multithreading was first called barrel processing, in which the staves
of a barrel represent the pipeline stages and their executing threads. Interleaved,
preemptive, fine-grained or time-sliced multithreading are more modern
terminology.
In addition to the hardware costs discussed in the block type of multithreading,
interleaved multithreading has an additional cost of each pipeline stage tracking the
thread ID of the instruction it is processing. Also, since there are more threads
being executed concurrently in the pipeline, shared resources such as caches and
TLBs need to be larger to avoid thrashing between the different threads.

Simultaneous multithreading
The most advanced type of multithreading applies to superscalar processors.
Whereas a normal superscalar processor issues multiple instructions from a single
thread every CPU cycle, in simultaneous multithreading (SMT) a superscalar
processor can issue instructions from multiple threads every CPU cycle.
Recognizing that any single thread has a limited amount of instruction-level
parallelism, this type of multithreading tries to exploit parallelism available across
multiple threads to decrease the waste associated with unused issue slots.
For example:

1. Cycle i: instructions j and j + 1 from thread A and instruction k from


thread B are simultaneously issued.
2. Cycle i + 1: instruction j + 2 from thread A, instruction k + 1 from thread B,
and instruction m from thread C are all simultaneously issued.
3. Cycle i + 2: instruction j + 3 from thread A and instructions m + 1 and m +
2 from thread C are all simultaneously issued.
To distinguish the other types of multithreading from SMT, the term "temporal
multithreading" is used to denote when instructions from only one thread can be
issued at a time.

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