MIT News April 16, 2019
Researchers at MIT have developed a process to compress objects across the memory hierarchy. This reduces memory usage while improving performance and efficiency. Programmers could benefit from this technique when programming in any modern programming language — such as Java, Python, and Go — that stores and manages data in objects, without changing their code. Consumers would see computers that can run much faster or can run many more apps at the same speeds. Because each application consumes less memory, it runs faster, so a device can support more applications within its allotted memory. In experiments the technique compressed twice as much data and reduced memory usage by half over traditional cache-based methods. A system called Hotpads stores entire objects, tightly packed into hierarchical levels, or “pads”. Programs then directly reference the location of all objects across the hierarchy of pads…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
A novel technique developed by MIT researchers compresses “objects” in memory for the first time, freeing up more memory used by computers, allowing them to run faster and perform more tasks simultaneously. Credit: Christine Daniloff, MIT