Question: Converting miss rate (misses per reference) into misses per instruction relies upon two factors: references per instruction fetched and the fraction of fetched instructions that

Converting miss rate (misses per reference) into misses per instruction relies upon two factors: references per instruction fetched and the fraction of fetched instructions that actually commits.

a. The formula for misses per instruction is written first in terms of three factors: miss rate, memory accesses, and instruction count. Each of these factors represents actual events. What is different about writing misses per instruction as miss rate times the factor memory accesses per instruction?

b. Speculative processors will fetch instructions that do not commit. The formula for misses per instruction on page B-5 refers to misses per instruction on the execution path, that is, only the instructions that must actually be executed to carry out the program. Convert the formula for misses per instruction, one that uses only miss rate, references per instruction fetched, and fraction of fetched instructions that commit. Why rely upon these factors rather than those in the formula?

c. The conversion in part (b) could yield an incorrect value to the extent that the value of the factor references per instruction fetched is not equal to the number of references for any particular instruction. Rewrite the formula of part (b) to correct this deficiency.

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a Accesses per instruction represents an average rate commonly measured over an entire benchmark or ... View full answer

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