Parallel Computer Architecture

Directory-Based Cache

Coherence

This chapter examines an important part of the development of parallel architec-

tures:

putting together cache coherence and a scalable, distributed-memory machine

organization. We have studied cache coherence for bus-based machines with cen-

tralized memory. We have also seen that in order to scale up machines, memory is

distributed, a scalable point-to-point interconnection network is introduced, and a

communication assist provides varying degrees of interpretation of network transac-

tions to support programming models. Regardless of the sophistication of that assist,

all of the scalable machines we have studie ...