Way-load balancing scheme for mobile cache LRU replacement

Reconfigurable soft-IPs are widely used in SoC design. LRU replacement policy is one of the reconfigurable techniques within a cache, in which biased way utilizations can be observed in some applications. Due to the increasing effect of the temperature on on-chip cache operation, especially in mobile processors, the biased way utilization with LRU replacement needs to be balanced in order to spread its potential heating problem. In this paper, we propose a way-load balancing scheme for the LRU replacement in mobile processors´ data caches to avoid potential heating congestion. Based on our simulation, the proposed mechanism shows well-balanced way utilization while maintaining the performance of LRU replacement. Even for the applications which have non-biased way utilization, more balanced way utilizations can be obtained without deteriorating the distributed patterns.