TY - GEN
T1 - Efficient cycle-accurate simulation of the UltraSPARC III CPU
AU - Strazdins, Peter
AU - Clarke, Bill
AU - Over, Andrew
PY - 2007
Y1 - 2007
N2 - This paper presents a novel technique for cycleaccurate simulation of the Central Processing Unit (CPU) of a modern superscalar processor, the Ultra-SPARC III Cu processor. The technique is based on adding a module to an existing fetch-decode-execute style of CPU simulator, rather than the traditional method of fully modelling the CPU microarchitecture. It is also suitable for accurate SMP modelling. The main functions of the module are the simulation of instruction grouping, register interlocks and the store buffer. Its simple table-driven implementation permits easy modification for exploring microarchitectural variations. The technique results in a 40% loss of simulation speed, instead of a 10 times or greater performance loss by fully implementing the detailed micro-architecture. The technique is validated against an actual UltraSPARC III Cu processor, and achieves high levels of accuracy over a range of scientific benchmarks.
AB - This paper presents a novel technique for cycleaccurate simulation of the Central Processing Unit (CPU) of a modern superscalar processor, the Ultra-SPARC III Cu processor. The technique is based on adding a module to an existing fetch-decode-execute style of CPU simulator, rather than the traditional method of fully modelling the CPU microarchitecture. It is also suitable for accurate SMP modelling. The main functions of the module are the simulation of instruction grouping, register interlocks and the store buffer. Its simple table-driven implementation permits easy modification for exploring microarchitectural variations. The technique results in a 40% loss of simulation speed, instead of a 10 times or greater performance loss by fully implementing the detailed micro-architecture. The technique is validated against an actual UltraSPARC III Cu processor, and achieves high levels of accuracy over a range of scientific benchmarks.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84868699931&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Conference contribution
SN - 1920682430
SN - 9781920682439
T3 - Conferences in Research and Practice in Information Technology Series
SP - 221
EP - 228
BT - Computer Science 2007 - Proceedings of the 13th Australasian Computer Science Conference, ACSC 2007
T2 - 30th Australasian Computer Science Conference, ACSC 2007
Y2 - 30 January 2007 through 2 February 2007
ER -