Technical note: a hierarchical computer architecture design and simulation environment

  • Authors:
  • P. S. Coe;F. W. Howell;R. N. Ibbett;L. M. Williams

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Edinburgh;University of Edinburgh;University of Edinburgh;University of Edinburgh

  • Venue:
  • ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation (TOMACS) - Special issue on Web-based modeling and simulation
  • Year:
  • 1998

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Abstract

A hierarchical computer architecture design and simulation environment (HASE) has been developed at the University of Edinburgh. HASE allows rapid development and exploration of computer architectures at multiple levels of abstraction, encompassing both hardware and software. It has five modes of operation (Design, Model Validation, Build Simulation, Simulate System, and Experiment) which formalize the design cycle and allow a proper separation of concerns among the different phases of simulation activity. The software of HASE itself includes a project data storage facility, a discrete-event simulation engine, graphical display/ editing mechanisms, a visualization mechanism, and tools for setting up experiments and gathering results. HASE has been used in a number of research and student projects and these exemplify many of the interesting features of HASE and their relation to designing, simulating and evaluating scalable systems. They include the modeling of scalable implementations of the hierarchical PRAM model of parallel computation on a 2-D mesh, the evaluation of the performance of multiprocessor interconnection networks, and a model of the Stanford DASH architecture.