OFF2F Program Execution Using Pseudo Non-Volatile Memory

Abstract

The speed at which non-volatile memory can be accessed has become faster. To exploit the features of non-volatile memory, an executable file format, OFF2F: Object File Format consisting of 2 Files, was proposed for speeding up program execution. OFF2F focuses on the access modes when the program is executed in the memory. OFF2F is designed based on the assumption that the memory of a computer comprises of both volatile and non-volatile memory. However, current computers do not have a mix of volatile and non-volatile memory. Therefore, in this study, we propose a method to simulate non-volatile memory using volatile memory to construct a volatile and pseudo non- volatile mixed-memory environment. We also present a method to execute OFF2F programs using the pseudo non-volatile memory. The performance in terms of the speed of program execution of the OFF2F program using a pseudo non-volatile memory is compared with a conventional executable file format. The results show that OFF2F requires lesser number of reads from external storage device and shorter page fault processing time.