CAPE: A Content-Addressable Processing Engine

Helena Caminal, Kailin Yang, Srivatsa Srinivasa, Akshay Krishna Ramanathan, Khalid Al-Hawaj, Tianshu Wu, Vijaykrishnan Narayanan, Christopher Batten, Jose F. Martinez

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Processing-in-memory (PIM) architectures attempt to overcome the von Neumann bottleneck by combining computation and storage logic into a single component. The content-Addressable parallel processing paradigm (CAPP) from the seventies is an in-situ PIM architecture that leverages content-Addressable memories to realize bit-serial arithmetic and logic operations, via sequences of search and update operations over multiple memory rows in parallel. In this paper, we set out to investigate whether the concepts behind classic CAPP can be used successfully to build an entirely CMOS-based, general-purpose microarchitecture that can deliver manyfold speedups while remaining highly programmable. We conduct a full-stack design of a Content-Addressable Processing Engine (CAPE), built out of dense push-rule 6T SRAM arrays. CAPE is programmable using the RISC-V ISA with standard vector extensions. Our experiments show that CAPE achieves an average speedup of 14 (up to 254) over an area-equivalent (slightly under 9 mm2 at 7 nm) out-of-order processor core with three levels of caches.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceeding - 27th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2021
PublisherIEEE Computer Society
Pages557-569
Number of pages13
ISBN (Electronic)9780738123370
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2021
Event27th Annual IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2021 - Virtual, Seoul, Korea, Republic of
Duration: Feb 27 2021Mar 1 2021

Publication series

NameProceedings - International Symposium on High-Performance Computer Architecture
Volume2021-February
ISSN (Print)1530-0897

Conference

Conference27th Annual IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2021
Country/TerritoryKorea, Republic of
CityVirtual, Seoul
Period2/27/213/1/21

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Hardware and Architecture

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