Introduction

Several cache technology which can expedite the speed of processing are used for modern processors over memory-CPU gap. Since the cache structure itself can affect the performance of the cache, to choose an appropriate structure is an important and a hard to solve problem. For example, generally bigger cache shows better performance. However due to cache pollution, the performance shows diminishing returns as the cache size goes bigger. Thus we have to choose an appropriate cache size. From this point, it might be valuable to look through the cache chracteristics of modern processors.

The cache structure can be determined by a few parameters such as cache size, replacement algorithm and associativity, and cache line size. While multi-core processors are introduced, the cache coherency also becomes issue and the coherency protocol such as MESI and MOESI affects the performance. In this psage, several cache parameters will be shown for modern multicore processors as well as for a couple of single-core processors.

Cache sizes in multicore architectures

Topic - Create a table of caches used in current multicore architectures, including such parameters as number of levels, line size, size and associativity of each level, latency of each level, whether each level is shared, and coherence protocol used. Compare this with two or three recent single-core designs.

**Detail of Caches**
Multicore Processors
Processor Name	Number of Levels	Line Size	Cache Size	Associativity	Coherence Protocol
AMD Athlon 64 X2	2	64 bytes (for both L1 & L2)	L1 - 64KB (Data) + 64KB (Instruction) per core L2 - 512KB to 1MB per core	L1 - 2 way (Data and Instruction cache) L2 - 16 way associative	Modified Owner Exclusive Shared Invalid (MOESI)
AMD Athlon 64 FX	2	64 bytes (for both L1 & L2)	L1 - 64KB (Data) + 64KB (Instruction) per core L2 - 1MB per core	L1 - 2 way (Data and Instruction cache) L2 - 16 way associative	Modified Owner Exclusive Shared Invalid (MOESI)
AMD Athlon Opteron (marketed for servers)	2	64 bytes (for both L1 & L2)	L1 - 64KB (Data) + 64KB (Instruction) per core L2 - 1MB per core	L1 - 2 way (Data and Instruction cache) L2 - 16 way associative	Modified Owner Exclusive Shared Invalid (MOESI)
Intel Pentium D	2	L1 - 64 byte lines L2 - 128 byte lines	L1 - 16 KB (data only. Instead of instruction cache, a "150KB trace cache" is used) L2 - 1MB or 2MB per core	L1 - 4 way L2 - 8 way	Modified Exclusive Shared Invalid (MESI)
Intel Pentium Dual Core	2	L1 - 64 byte lines L2 - 64 byte lines	L1 - 32 KB (both Data and Instruction cache) L2 - 1MB or 2MB per core	L1 - 4 way L2 - 8 way	Modified Exclusive Shared Invalid (MESI)
Intel Core 2 Duo	2	L1 - 64 byte lines L2 - 64 byte lines	L1 - 32 KB (each for Data and Instruction cache) L2 - 2MB or 4MB	L1 - 4 way L2 - 8 way	Modified Exclusive Shared Invalid (MESI)
Broadcom SiByte SB1250	2	L1 - 32 byte lines L2 - 32 byte lines	L1 - 32 KB (a piece for Data and Instruction caches) L2 - 512KB	L1 - 2 way L2 - 4 way	Modified Exclusive Shared Invalid (MESI)
Sun Microsystems UltraSPARC IV	2	L1 - 128byte lines L2 - 128 byte lines	L1 - 64KB data, 32KB instruction L2 - up to 16MB	L2 - 2 way	Modified Owner Exclusive Shared Invalid (MOESI)
IBM Cell Processor	2	Not Available	L1 - 32 KB (a piece for both data and instruction caches) L2 - 512KB	L1 - 2 way instruction, 4 way data L2 - 8 way	Modified Exclusive Shared Invalid (MESI)
Singlecore Processors
AMD Athlon 64	2	L1 - 64 byte lines L2 - 64 byte lines	L1 - 64 KB (each for Data and Instruction cache) L2 - 512KB	L1 - 2 way L2 - 16 way	Modified Owner Exclusive Shared Invalid (MOESI)
AMD K6 / K6 III	2	L1 - 32 byte lines L2 - 32 byte lines	L1 - 32KB data, 32KB instruction L2 - 256KB	L1 - 2 way L2 - 4 way	Modified Exclusive Shared Invalid (MESI)
Intel Pentium 4	2	L1 - 64 byte lines L2 - 128 byte lines	L1 - 8 KB (data only. Instead of instruction cache, a "150KB trace cache" is used)) L2 -256KB, 512KB or 1MB	L1 - 4 way L2 - 8 way	Modified Exclusive Shared Invalid (MESI)
Intel PentiumIII 600	2	L1 - 32 byte lines L2 - 32 byte lines	L1 - 16 KB data, 16KB Instruction L2 - 256KB	L1 - 4 way L2 - 8 way	Modified Exclusive Shared Invalid (MESI)

Conclusion

Most of processors introduced nowadays have 32K or 64K data/instruction L1 cache which have 2, 4 or 8 set-associativity, although we can have many other sizes and associativity. The cache lines are either 64 or 128 bytes. MESI and MOESI are the prevailed cache coherency protocol.

From the above table we find that there isn't much difference in the specifications of caches used in multi-core and single-core processors.