An Efficient, Practical Parallelization Methodology for Multicore Architecture Simulation

Multiple core designs have become commonplace in the processor market, and are hence a major focus in modern computer architecture research. Thus, for both product development and research, multiple core processor simulation environments are necessary. A well-known positive feedback property of computer design is that we use today's computers to design tomorrow's. Thus, with the emergence of chip multiprocessors, it is natural to re-examine simulation environments written to exploit parallelism. In this paper we present a programming methodology for directly converting existing uniprocessor simulators into parallelized multiple-core simulators. Our method not only takes significantly less development effort compared to some prior used programming techniques, but also possesses advantages by retaining a modular and comprehensible programming structure. We demonstrate our case with actual developed products after applying this method to two different simulators, one developed f...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2006
• Where: CAL
• Authors: James Donald, Margaret Martonosi
• Keywords: CAL 2006, CAL 2008, Multiple Core, Multiple Core Designs, Simulation Environments