Thus, enhancements to dynamic memory management algorithms can result in noticeable improvements in application performance. For this reason, dynamic memory management provides an excellent starting point for research into the use of reconfigurable computers for mainstream computing. The design of a simulator to evaluate the performance of dynamic memory management on two computing platforms is discussed. This simulator allocates and deallocates memory blocks based on simulated loads consisting of uniform distributions of memory block sizes and existence times. The simulator measures the time required for pairs of allocation and deallocation primitives.
Experimental results indicate the computing platforms studied have comparable performance.
The results also indicate a significant speedup is theoretically possible on both platforms. A modified Buddy System is proposed to exploit the parallel computing environment formed by the combination of a target computing platform with a reconfigurable computing board. This system stores the free lists in RAM on the reconfigurable computing board. This enables the reconfigurable hardware to update these data structures in parallel with the execution of the application on the target computing platform. The focus is on timing requirements for successful implementation and the interface software required.