Exploiting thread-level parallelism has become a part of mainstream programming in recent years. Many approaches to parallelization require threads executing in parallel to also synchronize occassionally (i.e., coordinate concurrent accesses to shared state). Transactional Memory (TM) is a programming abstraction that provides the concept of database transactions in the context of programming languages such as C/C++. This allows programmers to only declare which pieces of a program synchronize without requiring them to actually implement synchronization and tune its performance, which in turn makes TM typically easier to use than other abstractions such as locks. I have investigated and implemented the building blocks that are required for a high-performance, practical, and realistic TM. They host several novel algorithms and optimizations for TM implementations, both for current hardware and future hardware extensions for TM, and are being used in or have influenced commercial TM implementations such as the TM support in GCC.

In dieser Arbeit werden Speichertransistoren mit Oxid-Nitrid-Oxid-Speicherschicht und lokaler Ladungsspeicherung untersucht, die zur nichtflüchtigen Speicherung von Informationen genutzt werden. Charakteristisch für diese Transistoren ist, dass an beiden Enden des Transistorkanals innerhalb der Isolationsschicht Informationen in Form von Ladungspaketen unabhängig und getrennt voneinander gespeichert werden. Für das Auslesen, Programmieren und Löschen der Speichertransistoren werden die physikalischen Hintergründe diskutiert und grundlegende Algorithmen zur Implementierung dieser Operationen auf einer typischen Speicherfeldarchitektur aufgezeigt. Für Standard-MOS-Transistoren wird ein Kurzkanal-Schwellspannungsmodell abgeleitet und analytisch gelöst. Anhand dieser Modellgleichung werden die bekannten Kurzkanaleffekte betrachtet. Weiterhin wird ein Modell zur Berechnung des Drainstroms von Kurzkanaltransistoren im Subthreshold-Arbeitsbereich abgeleitet und gezeigt, dass sich die Drain-Source-Leckströme bei Kurzkanaltransistoren vergrößern. Die Erweiterung des Schwellspannungsmodells für Standard-MOS-Transistoren auf den Fall der lokalen Ladungsspeicherung innerhalb der Isolationsschicht erlaubt die Ableitung eines Schwellspannungsmodells für Oxid-Nitrid-Oxid-Transistoren mit lokaler Ladungsspeicherung. Dieses Modell gestattet die qualitative und quantitative Diskussion der Erhöhung der Schwellspannung durch die lokale Injektion von Ladungsträgern beim Programmiervorgang. Weiterhin ist es mit diesem Modell möglich, die Trennung der an beiden Kanalenden des Transistors gespeicherten Informationen beim Auslesevorgang qualitativ zu erklären und diese Bittrennung in Abhängigkeit von der Drainspannung zu berechnen. Für Langkanalspeichertransistoren wird eine analytische Näherungslösung des Schwellspannungsmodells angegeben, während das Kurzkanalverhalten durch die numerische Lösung der Modellgleichung bestimmt werden kann. Für Langkanalspeichertransistoren wird ein Subthreshold-Modell zur Berechnung des Drainstroms abgeleitet. Dieses Modell zeigt, dass sich die Leckströme von programmierten Speichertransistoren im Vergleich zu Standard-MOS-Transistoren gleicher Schwellspannung vergrößern. Die Ursache dieses Effekts, die Verringerung der Subthreshold-Steigung von Transistoren im programmierten Zustand, wird analysiert. Für einige praktische Beispiele wird die Anwendung der hergeleiteten Modellgleichungen beim Entwurf von Flash-Speichern demonstriert. / In this work, memory transistors with an oxide-nitride-oxide trapping-layer and local charge storage, which are used for non-volatile information storage, are examined. Characteristic for these transistors is an independent and separated storage of information by charge packages, located at both sides of the transistor channel, in the insulation layer. The physical backgrounds for reading, programming and erasing the memory transistors are discussed, and basic algorithms are shown for implementing these operations on a typical memory array architecture. For standard MOS-transistors a short channel threshold model is derived and solved analytically. By using these model equations, the known short channel effects are considered. Further, a model for calculating the drain current of short channel transistors in the subthreshold operation region is derived. This model is used to show the increase of drain-source leakage currents in short channel transistors. By extending the standard MOS-transistor threshold voltage model for local charge storage in the insulation layers, the derivation of a threshold voltage model for oxide-nitride-oxide transistors with local charge storage is enabled. This model permits the quantitative and qualitative discussion of the increase in threshold voltage caused by local injection of charges during programming. Furthermore, with this model, the separation of the information, which are stored at both sides of the transistor channel, in the read-out operation is explained qualitatively, and the bit separation is calculated dependent on the drain voltage. For long channel memory transistors an analytical approximation of the threshold voltage model is given, whereas the short channel behaviour can be determined by solving the model equation numerically. For long channel memory transistors, a subthreshold model for calculating the drain current is derived. This model shows the increase in leakage current of programmed memory transistors in comparision to standard MOS-transistors. The root cause of this effect, the reduced subthreshold swing of transistors in the programmed state, is analysed. The application of the derived model equations for the development of flash memories is demonstrated with some practical examples.

Modern disk-storage systems have to accomplish the requirements of a variety of application classes. Applications that process continuous-media data such as video and audio streams require the storage system to guarantee sustained bandwidths. Interactive applications demand the storage system to ensure bounded response times, posing timing constraints on the execution of individual disk requests. Traditional timesharing applications may require both high throughput or overall short response times. With the described applications being more and more used together in todays computing systems, the disk-storage subsystems have to efficiently combine the different requirements of this application mix. In this thesis, I develop the design of a storage system that comprehensively addresses the various challenges posed by including the support for quality-of-service guarantees in disk-storage systems. The presented storage system provides three main properties. First, the admission control includes the support for statistical guarantees to increase the share of the disk bandwidth that can be utilized by the admission control. Second, the disk-request scheduling clearly separates the enforcement of real-time guarantees from the task to establish the optimal execution order of the requests, and it provides a flexible mechanism to combine the execution of requests with different quality-of-service requirements. Finally, the file system addresses both the needs of the former two elements of the storage system and of the various file types used by the applications by providing a flexible block-allocation policy and customized client interfaces. I show the implementation of the presented designs with the DROPS Disk-Storage System and I provide a detailed evaluation based on this implementation.

Growing memory capacities and the increasing number of cores on modern hardware enforces the design of new in-memory indexing structures that reduce the number of memory transfers and minimizes the need for locking to allow massive parallel access. However, most applications depend on hard durability constraints requiring a persistent medium like SSDs, which shorten the latency and throughput gap between main memory and hard disks. In this paper, we present our winning solution of the SIGMOD Programming Contest 2011. It consists of an in-memory indexing structure that provides a balanced read/write performance as well as non-blocking reads and single-lock writes. Complementary to this index, we describe an SSD-optimized logging approach to fit hard durability requirements at a high throughput rate.

Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit werden haftstellen-basierte Speicherzellen als mögliche Alternative zum bestehenden Floating-Gate Konzept untersucht. Hierbei wird zunächst mittels Simulation und ausgewählten Messverfahren das Verständnis der Funktionsweise vertieft. Der darauffolgende Abschnitt befasst sich mit der Verbesserung der elektrischen Eigenschaften, basierend auf Änderungen der verwendeten Materialien und dem räumlichen Aufbau. Abschließend erfolgt die Untersuchung der Anwendbarkeit des Zellkonzeptes in hochdichten Zellenfeldern.