A new technique called Dense Footprint Cache (DFC) can boost application speed and cut energy use. By improving the efficiency with which computer processors find and retrieve the data they need from memory, researchers from Samsung Electronics and North Carolina State University (NC State) have given computer applications a speed boost of over nine percent, while reducing energy use by over four percent.
Though computers store all data to be manipulated off-chip in main memory (aka RAM), data required regularly by the processor is also temporarily stored in a die-stacked DRAM (dynamic random access memory) cache that allows the data to be retrieved more quickly. This data is stored in large blocks, or macroblocks, that allows the processor to locate the data it needs, but means additional, unwanted data contained in the macroblocks is also retrieved, wasting time and energy.