tree 9021c99956e0f9dc64655aaa4309c0f0fdb055c9
parent ede70290046043b2638204cab55e26ea1d0c6cd9
author Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu> 1304075987 +0200
committer Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu> 1304079838 +0200

perf events: Add generic front-end and back-end stalled cycle event definitions

Add two generic hardware events: front-end and back-end stalled cycles.

These events measure conditions when the CPU is executing code but its
capabilities are not fully utilized. Understanding such situations and
analyzing them is an important sub-task of code optimization workflows.

Both events limit performance: most front end stalls tend to be caused
by branch misprediction or instruction fetch cachemisses, backend
stalls can be caused by various resource shortages or inefficient
instruction scheduling.

Front-end stalls are the more important ones: code cannot run fast
if the instruction stream is not being kept up.

An over-utilized back-end can cause front-end stalls and thus
has to be kept an eye on as well.

The exact composition is very program logic and instruction mix
dependent.

We use the terms 'stall', 'front-end' and 'back-end' loosely and
try to use the best available events from specific CPUs that
approximate these concepts.

Cc: Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@chello.nl>
Cc: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@redhat.com>
Cc: Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@gmail.com>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/n/tip-7y40wib8n000io7hjpn1dsrm@git.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>