Assignment 1A: Review of two research papers (done individually)
Kan Yu
IDT
kan.yu@mdh.se
Read the papers carefully and write a personally written review on each paper based on the
issues below (about A4 page normal sized text per paper, 300 - 700 words). The analysis
must be expressed in your own words.
PAPER 1
Author, Title: Worst-Case Execution Time Analysis for Dynamic Branch Predictors

Is the paper well organized?
The paper is well organized. One suggestion is that the Section 2 can be merged into
Section 4 and Section 3(related works) can be directly placed after the introduction part.s

Comment the following sections (if present):
 Title,
The title is brief and clear, also summarizes key information of this paper.

Abstract,
The abstract section looks good. The research problems and motivation have
been stated. The contribution and results are explained as well. The only problem
is that the research problems are not highlighted enough, which may make the
paper a little less attractive to some readers.

Introduction,
The some basic background information, especially the research problems are
very well explained at this section, which is the most important thing for this part.
The paper organization is also mentioned at the end of this section. One problem
is that the research approaches and results can be briefly summarized in this part
for readers getting general information of this paper.

Main section(s),
The main sections are well organized. The authors start with introducing some
basic knowledge of branch prediction techniques, and then explain their method
which is transferred from one previous research solution, followed by an
extension to more complex predictor configurations. The research approaches
are clearly described in a good mathematical way. Equations are easy to
understand. The simulation results are analyzed in Section 6. The figures from
the simulations are described clearly, but the analysis can be more correlated to
the theoretical part before, since the authors only state the simulation results and
the reasons behind are not deeply explored, especially for Figure 3 and 4.

Summary,
(not present)
Conclusions, and
The authors conclude the whole paper in a good way, including research
methods, simulation results and even the future works. Maybe the reasons for the
future work can be more clearly described.


References.
No problem for the references.

Comment on the language used in the paper.
The language of the paper is decent. Only few grammar mistakes can be found.

General comments to the paper.
In this paper, the authors proposed a static analysis approach for bimodal and globalhistory branch prediction schemes, as an improvement of previous branch prediction
analysis. The paper is well written. The motivation and research problems are described
in a good way. The research methods are well stated, as well as the simulation results.
PAPER 2
Author, Title: Improving Direct-Mapped Cache Performance by the Addition of a Small FullyAssociative Cache and Prefetch Buffers

Is the paper well organized?
The general structure of this paper is good, but the paper can be organized in a better
way. For instance, Section 2 is pretty long, which can be divided into subsections.

Comment the following sections (if present):
 Title,
From the title, readers may think that some creative solutions are proposed in this
paper. However, actually this paper is more like benchmarking. Thus the title can
be modified to be more accurate as what it is.
 Abstract,
The abstract is too long and contains too many paragraphs. Paragraphs 2,3 and
4 can be merged. Motivation of this paper is not clear enough and the
contribution cannot be seen at all. Also the benchmark results are not clearly
mentioned at this part.
 Introduction,
Compared with abstract, the introduction part is not enough. The research
problems are not very well descried, and the purpose of this paper is also not well
stated. Another problem is that, we suggest that it’d better not have any table or
figure on the first page of the paper. Thus Table 1-1 can be switched to some
other placed or just totally removed.
 Main section(s),
The main parts of the paper generally look good. More comments for each
section are summarized as follow:
Section 2: This section mainly describes a baseline design by applying traditional
caching techniques. The section starts with “Figure 2-1 shows …”. Actually,
before this, some more background knowledge can be introduced, so that
readers are able to understand the concept more clearly. As we mentioned
above, this section can be divided at least two subsections for a better structure.
For instance, the first subsection can describe some basic knowledge of baseline
design and the second subsection can focus on traditional caching techniques.
Section 3: Some connection between previous section and this section words are
needed, in order to make the paper more fluent. Victim caching should be
mentioned somehow before subsection 3.1, but not at all actually.
Section 4: I would prefer that before subsection 4.1, some common knowledge
of stream buffers, multi-way stream buffers, cache size and line size are briefly
introduced. Then the readers will know the logical connection of this section.



Summary,
(not present)
 Conclusions, and
Similar problem as the abstract, the conclusion part is too long, even with one
figure, which is not so common.
 References.
No problem for references.
Comment on the language used in the paper.
Several grammar mistakes can be found in this paper, such as “…have only a one cycle
miss..” and “Comparing Figure 3-3 and Figure 3-1,”, etc…
General comments to the paper.
This paper benchmarks miss caching, victim caching, as well as an extension to prefetch
techniques called stream buffering in order to improving direct-mapped cache
performance. Generally, this paper is written in a scientific way with convincing results.
Only one problem is that the structure of paper can be further optimized for better
understanding.
Use the guidelines given during the lecture!
2009-09-01