Analyzing data locality in numeric applications

In this article, we introduce SPLAT (Static and Profiled Data Locality Analysis Tool). The tool´s purpose is to provide a fast study of memory behavior without the necessity of a costly memory simulator. SPLAT consists of a static locality analysis enhanced by simple profiling data. Its overhead is low because it performs most of the analysis at compile time, and because the required profiling support is just a basic-block-execution count. Many commercial compilers support this profiling option. Compared with simulation techniques, SPLAT´s estimation technique is highly accurate for numeric codes