Simulation sampling with live-points

Current simulation-sampling techniques construct accurate model state for each measurement by continuously warming large microarchitectural structures (e.g., caches and the branch predictor) while functionally simulating the billions of instructions between measurements. This approach, called functional warming, is the main performance bottleneck of simulation sampling and requires hours of runtime while the detailed simulation of the sample requires only minutes. Existing simulators can avoid functional simulation by jumping directly to particular instruction stream locations with architectural state checkpoints. To replace functional warming, these checkpoints must additionally provide microarchitectural model state that is accurate and reusable across experiments while meeting tight storage constraints. In this paper, we present a simulation-sampling framework that replaces functional warming with live-points without sacrificing accuracy. A live-point stores the bare minimum of fun...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: ISPASS
• Authors: Thomas F. Wenisch, Roland E. Wunderlich, Babak Falsafi, James C. Hoe
• Keywords: Functional Warming, ISPASS 2006, Model State, Simulations, Software Engineering