ABSTRACT
In this paper, we describe the design and performance analysis of a new parallel garbage collection (gc) scheme called the partial marking gc which is a variant of generational gc. Partial marking gc is based on the snapshot-at-beginning (snapshot) algorithm, which is one of the most practical parallel mark-sweep gc algorithms. Partial marking gc reduces the time spent in marking and improves collection efficiency. Our analysis shows that the collection efficiency of the partial marking gc is 1.5 times better than the snapshot algorithm. The performance of the partial marking gc using one gc processor is equivalent to the snapshot algorithm using two gc processors. Our partial marking gc is easy to implement and provides an efficient and practical parallel gc algorithm.
