svn commit: r42864 - head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/news/status

Sun Oct 6 08:58:27 UTC 2013

Author: pgj
Date: Sun Oct  6 08:58:26 2013
New Revision: 42864
URL: http://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/doc/42864

Log:
  - Add Q3 report on ARM superpages
  
  Submitted by:	zbb

Modified:
  head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/news/status/report-2013-07-2013-09.xml

Modified: head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/news/status/report-2013-07-2013-09.xml
==============================================================================

--- head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/news/status/report-2013-07-2013-09.xml	Sun Oct  6 08:41:37 2013	(r42863)
+++ head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/news/status/report-2013-07-2013-09.xml	Sun Oct  6 08:58:26 2013	(r42864)
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
 
     <!-- XXX: keep updating the number of entries -->
     <p>Thanks to all the reporters for the excellent work!  This report
-      contains 13 entries and we hope you enjoy reading it.</p>
+      contains 14 entries and we hope you enjoy reading it.</p>
 
     <!-- XXX: set date for the next set of submissions -->
     <p>The deadline for submissions covering between October and
@@ -666,4 +666,99 @@
       </ul>
     </body>
   </project>
+
+  <project cat='arch'>
+    <title>Superpages for ARMv7</title>
+
+    <contact>
+      <person>
+	<name>
+	  <given>Zbigniew</given>
+	  <common>Bodek</common>
+	</name>
+	<email>zbb at semihalf.com</email>
+      </person>
+
+      <person>
+	<name>
+	  <given>Grzegorz</given>
+	  <common>Bernacki</common>
+	</name>
+	<email>gjb at semihalf.com</email>
+      </person>
+
+      <person>
+	<name>
+	  <given>Rafał</given>
+	  <common>Jaworowski</common>
+	</name>
+	<email>raj at semihalf.com</email>
+      </person>
+    </contact>
+
+    <links>
+      <url href="http://static.usenix.org/events/osdi02/tech/full_papers/navarro/navarro.pdf" />
+      <url href="http://wiki.freebsd.org/ARMSuperpages" />
+      <url href="http://blogs.arm.com/software-enablement/1079-transparent-superpages-for-freebsd-on-arm" />
+      <url href="https://wiki.freebsd.org/201309DevSummit?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=semihalf-superpages_armv7.pdf" />
+      <url href="http://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/base/254918" />
+    </links>
+
+    <body>
+      <p>The ARM architecture is becoming more and more prevalent, with
+	increasing usage beyond the mobile and embedded space.  Among the
+	more interesting industry trends emerging in the recent months,
+	there has been the concept of "ARM server".  Some top-tier
+	companies, e.g. Dell and HP, have already started to develop
+	such systems.</p>
+
+      <p>Key to success of &os; in these new areas is dealing with the
+	sophisticated features of the platform, for example adding
+	support for superpages.</p>
+
+      <p>The objective of this project is to enable &os;/arm to utilize
+	superpages which would allow efficient use of TLB translations
+	(by enlarging TLB coverage), leading to improved performance in
+	many applications and scalability.  This is intended to work on
+	ARMv7-based processors, however compatibility with ARMv6 will be
+	preserved.</p>
+
+      <p>The following steps have been made since the last status
+	report:</p>
+
+      <ul>
+	<li>The <tt>pmap</tt> module has been adjusted to fully utilize
+	  superpages.</li>
+
+	<li>Found and fixed minor bugs in superpage management.</li>
+
+	<li>Implemented the <tt>pmap_advise()</tt> routine.</li>
+
+	<li>Performed extensive testing and benchmarking:
+
+	  <ul>
+	    <li>Giga Updates Per Second (GUPS) benchmark: 34% lower memory access
+	      latency and 34% higher updates ratio.</li>
+
+	    <li>LMbench: 38% lower memory latency.</li>
+
+	    <li>Self-hosted <tt>buildworld</tt>: 20% shorter, using GCC.</li>
+	  </ul></li>
+
+	<li>Final integration into &os; <tt>head</tt>.</li>
+      </ul>
+
+      <p>This project is jointly sponsored by The &os; Foundation and
+	Semihalf.</p>
+    </body>
+
+    <help>
+      <task>Adjust <tt>pmap</tt> to resolve the demotion issue caused by
+	the continuous active queue scanning in VM.</task>
+
+      <task>Support for 64KB page size.</task>
+
+      <task>Move <tt>pv_flags</tt> to page table entry descriptors.</task>
+    </help>
+  </project>
 </report>
