Objectives

Compare different cache replacement algorithms for a last level cache in a common framework. Replacement algorithms will be evaluated for both private and shared last level caches with and without a data prefetcher. The algorithms must be implemented within a fixed storage budget (32KB per core) as specified in the competition rules. Submissions will be evaluated based on their performance using the framework provided by the organizing committee. Submissions will be evaluated under the following four configurations:

• Single core with 2 MB LLC without a prefetcher.
• Single core with 2 MB LLC with L1/L2 data prefetchers.
• A 4-cores with 8 MB of shared LLC without a prefetcher.
• A 4-cores with 8 MB of shared LLC with L1/L2 prefetchers.

Rules

The following are the rules for the 2nd Cache Replacement Championship:

• All replacement policies must contain less than or equal to 32KB worth of state per core.
• All replacement policies must use only the published simulator interface functions (ie. no disassembly of the simulator to extract extra information).
• Replacement policies must not violate causality (ie. the policy must not pre-parse the trace or other such cheats).
• To be considered an eligible submission, both the four page writeup and the (working) source code must be submitted by the submission deadline of Apr. 14th (submission details to follow).
• Submissions to CRC2 will not be considered archival, thus do not count against future conference/journal publication.
• Concurrent submission with ACM/IEEE Micro’17 is allowed. In all such concurrent submissions, however, the PC chairs of both Micro and CRC2 must be made aware of the submission concurrency before the Micro deadline.
• Authors retain copyright of all submissions and code, but must allow them to be published on the CRC-2 website.

Here is the CRC2 official Champsim distribution used for all submissions.