On the Fractal Dimension of Computer Programs and its Application to the Prediction of the Cache Miss Ratio

  • Authors:
  • Dominique Thiébaut

  • Affiliations:
  • Smith College, Northampton, MA

  • Venue:
  • IEEE Transactions on Computers
  • Year:
  • 1989

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Abstract

Fractal geometry is proposed as a powerful measure of program behavior, and its application to the prediction of the miss ratio of programs in fully associative caches is presented. Programs are modeled as one-dimensional fractal random-walks. The fractal cache model is based on the parameterization of a program trace by a small number of constants, one of which is the fractal dimension of the program. The model is validated by trace-driven simulations of several program traces. With this model, it is possible to read the trace of a program once, and then predict the behavior of the miss ratio curve of that program in fully associative caches of varying sizes.