TLB Entry Merging for Address Conversion Bottlenecks
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
The increasing amount of data processed in electronic devices leads to performance degradation due to the increased frequency of TLB misses, resulting in higher power consumption and space requirements for large Translation Lookaside Buffers (TLBs) needed for address conversion in memory management units (MMUs).
Innovation Solution
The method involves determining if physical addresses mapped to virtual addresses are consecutive, merging these entries into a single entry, and storing the merged entry in a limited TLB, allowing for efficient address conversion without increasing the TLB size, thereby reducing TLB misses and maintaining performance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If the size of TLB is increased to handle increased data processing, then address conversion performance is improved, but power consumption and space requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple consecutive TLB entries into a single consolidated entry. When the MMU detects that multiple virtual addresses map to consecutive physical addresses, it combines these separate TLB entries into one merged entry that covers the entire consecutive range. This reduces the total number of entries needed in the TLB, thereby reducing power consumption and space requirements while maintaining efficient address conversion performance.
2Productivity
If the size of TLB is increased to handle increased data processing, then address conversion performance is improved, but space requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple consecutive TLB entries into a single consolidated entry. When the MMU detects that multiple virtual addresses map to consecutive physical addresses, it combines these separate TLB entries into one merged entry that covers the entire consecutive range. This reduces the total number of entries needed in the TLB, thereby reducing power consumption and space requirements while maintaining efficient address conversion performance.
3Quantity of substance
If the page unit is increased to reduce TLB mapping number, then TLB size is reduced, but compatibility with current operating system and memory applications is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a dynamic entry merging mechanism that operates at runtime based on actual address mapping patterns. The MMU continuously monitors virtual-to-physical address mappings and dynamically merges consecutive entries when detected, rather than using a fixed large page unit. This dynamic approach reduces the effective number of TLB entries needed while maintaining compatibility with standard page sizes and existing operating systems, as the merging is transparent and adaptive to actual usage patterns.
Data Source
AI summary
An electronic device and a method for managing memory thereof are disclosed. According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, a method for an electronic device to manage memory, comprising: determining whether a physical address mapped to a virtual address is consecutive with respect to at least two entries belonging to a plurality of entries having virtual addresses and physical addresses mapped and including a consecutive virtual address; merging entries in which the virtual address and the physical address are consecutive into one entry if, as a result of the determination, the physical addresses of the at least entries are consecutive; and storing the merged entry in first memory.