A primer on memory consistency and cache coherence
by Daniel J. Sorin · first published 2011
86% recommend14% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Broad, readable overview of memory consistency and cache coherence that gives a clearer picture than piecing together blog posts; suited to engineers who want to understand coherence and consistency in depth.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Many modern computer systems and most multicore chips (chip multiprocessors) support shared memory in hardware. In a shared memory system, each of the processor cores may read and write to a single shared address space. For a shared memory machine, the memory consistency model defines the architecturally visible behavior of its memory system. Consistency definitions provide rules about loads and stores (or memory reads and writes) and how they act upon memory. As part of supporting a memory consistency model, many machines also provide cache coherence protocols that ensure that multiple cached
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i know, this was a tongue-firmly-in-cheek kind of comment, but on the off by one chance that you are serious, look no further than: 'A Primer on Memory Consistency and Cache Coherence' (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1608455645/) and ofcourse, while you are at it, you might want to check out 'UNIX Systems for Modern Architectures: Symmetric Multiprocessing and Caching' as well,…
on “Why we need a book about naming” ↗I'd recommend "A Primer on Memory Consistency and Cache Coherence, Second Edition" - Synthesis Lectures on Computer Architecture 15:1 (2020) - Vijay Nagarajan, Daniel J. Sorin, Mark D. Hill, David A. Wood - (open access, freely available): https://doi.org/10.2200/S00962ED2V01Y201910CAC049…
on “Memory Ordering in CPUs” ↗…perceptron predictor that's one of the branch predictor units in AMD Zen 2, http://web.archive.org/web/20231213180041/https://en.wikichi...). There are more, topic-specific texts that are very good, e.g., A Primer on Memory Consistency and Cache Coherence, Second Edition; Synthesis Lectures on Computer Architecture 15:1 (2020); Vijay Nagarajan, Daniel J. Sorin, Mark D. Hill, David A. Wood; open access (freely available) at https://doi.org/10.2200/S00962ED2V01Y201910CAC049…
on “Algorithms for Modern Processor Architectures” ↗If cache coherence is relevant to you, I strongly recommend the book “A Primer on Memory Consistency and Cache Coherence”. It’s much easier to understand the details of coherency from a broader perspective, than an incremental read-a-bunch-of-blogs perspective. I found that book very readable, and it cleared up most misconceptions…
on “Myths Programmers Believe about CPU Caches (2018)” ↗Answering only the latter question: A Primer on Memory Consistency and Cache Coherence, Second Edition https://www.morganclaypool.com/doi/10.2200/S00962ED2V01Y2019... (free online book) would help
on “Measuring CPU core-to-core latency” ↗I would probably recommend the art of multiprocessor programming (herlihy and shavitz) as a good starting point for concurrent programming. There is also " A primer on memory consistency and cache coherence" (Nagarajan et al) if you want to get more into the interaction between memory consistency and coherence.
on “Book review: Is parallel programming hard, and, if so, what can you do about it?” ↗Probably "A Primer on Memory Consistency and Cache Coherence"
on “Memory Consistency Models: A Tutorial” ↗“A Primer on Memory Consistency and Cache Coherence” is part of the "Synthesis Lectures on Computer Architecture" which are 50-100 page booklets on topics related to HW components. All the booklet PDF's are available online [1]. edit: only those PDF's…
on “Myths Programmers Believe about CPU Caches (2018)” ↗