NCode: Limiting harmful writes to emerging mobile NVRAM through code swapping

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

Mobile applications are becoming more and more powerful but also dependent on large main memories, which consume a large portion of system energy. Swapping to byte-addressable, non-volatile memory (NVRAM) is a promising solution to this problem. However, most NVRAMs have limited write endurance. To make it practical, the design of an NVRAM based swapping system must also consider endurance. In this paper, we target at prolonging the lifetime of NVRAM based swap area in mobile devices. Different from traditional wisdom, such as wear leveling and hot/cold data identification, we propose to build a system called nCode, which exploits the fact that code pages are easy to identify, read-only, and therefore a perfect candidate for swapping. Utilizing NVRAM's byte-addressability, we support execute-in-place (XIP) of the code pages in the swap area, without copying them back to DRAM based main memory. Experimental results based on the Google Nexus 5 smartphone show that nCode can effectively prolong the lifetime of NVRAM under various workloads.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 2015 Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition, DATE 2015
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages1305-1310
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9783981537048
DOIs
StatePublished - 22 Apr 2015
Externally publishedYes
Event2015 Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition, DATE 2015 - Grenoble, France
Duration: 9 Mar 201513 Mar 2015

Publication series

NameProceedings -Design, Automation and Test in Europe, DATE
Volume2015-April
ISSN (Print)1530-1591

Conference

Conference2015 Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition, DATE 2015
Country/TerritoryFrance
CityGrenoble
Period9/03/1513/03/15

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'NCode: Limiting harmful writes to emerging mobile NVRAM through code swapping'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this