Potential Performance Benefits of Optimization
The cache allocation library helps provide low buffer access latencies, which can improve overall workload performance as measured by worst-case execution times (WCET). Optimizing with the cache allocation library is not a guarantee to improve WCET, as many other variables outside the control of the library can affect the observed WCET. The degree to which the library can help a workload depends on, among other things, two characteristics:
memory access pattern
and arithmetic intensity
.Assuming an otherwise well-optimized operating environment (core affinities, interrupt management, scheduler priorities, etc.), you can expect:
- Minimal performance improvement if the workload has a linear memory access pattern, with a significant amount of compute instructions executed between buffer accesses (high arithmetic intensity).
- More significant performance improvement if the workload has a random memory access pattern, with minimal amounts of compute instructions being executed between buffer accesses (low arithmetic intensity).