Thread-Dedicated Heap Regions for Garbage Collection Avoidance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional garbage collectors in high performance memory management systems negatively impact processor usage, cause unpredicted pauses in user interfaces, and increase power consumption due to inefficient memory deallocation in computer programs.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a memory allocator that dedicates specific memory regions to threads and reclaims these regions upon thread termination, bypassing garbage collection pause and copy phases to enhance performance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If traditional garbage collectors are used to automatically reclaim memory, then memory deallocation is automated, but processor usage increases and performance decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The memory heap is divided into multiple regions, with each region dedicated to a specific thread. When a thread terminates, its dedicated memory region is automatically reclaimed without requiring full garbage collection. This segmentation allows selective memory reclamation that avoids the overhead of system-wide garbage collection while maintaining automation benefits.
Solution Approach 2:
Each thread's memory region is automatically reclaimed upon thread termination through the dedication mechanism. The system self-manages memory reclamation by tracking which regions are dedicated to which threads, eliminating the need for external garbage collection intervention for these regions and reducing processor overhead.
2Ease of operation
If traditional garbage collectors are used to automatically reclaim memory, then memory management is simplified, but user interface experiences unpredicted pauses
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting the heap into thread-dedicated regions, the patent enables independent memory reclamation for each thread. When a UI thread terminates or releases memory, its dedicated region is immediately reclaimed without pausing other threads or requiring full garbage collection, thus eliminating unpredicted UI pauses while maintaining simplified memory management.
Solution Approach 2:
Memory regions are pre-dedicated to threads before the threads execute. This preliminary assignment establishes clear ownership and reclamation paths, allowing the system to automatically reclaim memory when threads complete without requiring interrupting garbage collection cycles that would pause the UI.
3Ease of operation
If traditional garbage collectors are used to automatically reclaim memory, then memory reclamation is automated, but power consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The heap segmentation into thread-dedicated regions enables targeted memory reclamation only for terminated threads rather than system-wide garbage collection. This reduces the computational work required for memory management, lowering power consumption while maintaining automated reclamation for each thread's memory.
Solution Approach 2:
The memory dedication mechanism enables automatic, on-demand reclamation of thread-specific memory regions without requiring energy-intensive full garbage collection cycles. The system self-manages reclamation at the point of thread termination, reducing overall power consumption while maintaining automation benefits.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems, apparatuses and methods may provide for technology that detects a creation of a thread, dedicates a memory region to objects associated with the thread, and conducts a reclamation of the memory region in response to a termination of the thread. In one example, the memory region is a heap region and the reclamation bypasses at least a pause phase and a copy phase of a garbage collection process with respect to the heap region.