Communications of the ACM
New Software Design Technique Allows Programs to Run Faster
North Carolina State University (NCSU) researchers have developed a way for computer programs to run up to 20 percent faster and possibly incorporate new security measures. The approach involves running different parts of some programs, such as word processors and Web browsers, at the same time, which allows them to operate more efficiently.
The researchers' technique makes hard-to-parallelize applications run in parallel by using nontraditional approaches to break programs into threads. "We've removed the memory-management step from the process, running it as a separate thread," says NCSU professor Yan Solihin. Under the new approach, the computation thread and memory management thread are executing at the same time, enabling the program to run more efficiently. "By running the memory-management functions on a separate thread, these hard-to-parallelize programs can operate approximately 20 percent faster," Solihin says.
The technique also makes it possible to develop new memory-management functions that could perform security checks without hurting the program's performance.
From NCSU News
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