AMD proposes psychic extensions for CPUs
AMD is floating a set of new instructions that could make it easier for programs to tune themselves. Called Lightweight Profiling (LWP), the new instructions would become part of AMD’s AMD64 instruction set.
LWP would add little overhead yet give applications direct feedback from the CPU on how a process for the application is running. If the process is generating excessive cache misses, branch mispredictions, or thread locks, the app—with real-time feedback from the CPU—would, in theory, correct the problem and run faster. LWP could help programmers in the daunting task of optimizing for the increasing number of execution cores in PCs. That number is predicted to reach from eight to 16 within a year or two. AMD hasn’t said when LWP will be integrated into its CPUs, but it will apparently not be available in upcoming quad-core Opteron and Phenom FX CPUs.
AMD is floating a set of new instructions that could make it easier for programs to tune themselves. Called Lightweight Profiling (LWP), the new instructions would become part of AMD’s AMD64 instruction set.
LWP would add little overhead yet give applications direct feedback from the CPU on how a process for the application is running. If the process is generating excessive cache misses, branch mispredictions, or thread locks, the app—with real-time feedback from the CPU—would, in theory, correct the problem and run faster. LWP could help programmers in the daunting task of optimizing for the increasing number of execution cores in PCs. That number is predicted to reach from eight to 16 within a year or two. AMD hasn’t said when LWP will be integrated into its CPUs, but it will apparently not be available in upcoming quad-core Opteron and Phenom FX CPUs.
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