SimpleScalar: An Infrastructure for Computer System Modeling

  • Authors:
  • Todd Austin;Eric Larson;Dan Ernst

  • Affiliations:
  • -;-;-

  • Venue:
  • Computer
  • Year:
  • 2002

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Abstract

Designers can execute programs on software models to validate a proposed hardware design's performance and correctness, while programmerscan use these models to develop and test software before the real hardwarebecomes available. Three critical requirements drive the implementationof a software model: performance, flexibility, and detail.Performance determines the amount of workload the model can exercise given the machine resources available for simulation. Flexibility indicates how well the model is structured to simplify modification, permitting design variants or even completely different designs to be modeled with ease. Detail defines the level of abstraction used to implement the model's components.The SimpleScalar tool set provides an infrastructure for simulation and architectural modeling. It can model a variety of platforms ranging from simple unpipelined processors to detailed dynamically scheduled microarchitectures with multiple-level memory hierarchies. SimpleScalar simulators reproduce computing device operations by executing all program instructions using an interpreter.The tool set's instruction inter-complex modern machines and effectively manage the large software projects needed to model such machines. Asim addresses these needs by providing a modular and reusable framework for creating many models. The framework's modularity helps break down the performance-modeling problem into individual pieces that can be modeled separately, while its reusability allows using a software component repeatedly in different contexts.