SimpleScalar: An Infrastructure for Computer System Modeling

tail defines the level of abstraction used to implement the model's components. A highly detailed model will faithfully simulate all aspects of machine operation, whether or not a particular aspect is important to any metric being measured. In practice, optimizing all three model characteristics in tandem is difficult. Thus, most model implementations optimize only one or two of them, which explains why so many software models exist, even for a single product design. Research models tend to optimize performance and flexibility at the expense of detail. The SimpleScalar toolset provides an infrastructure for simulation and architectural modeling. The toolset can model a variety of platforms ranging from simple unpipelined processors to detailed dynamically scheduled microarchitectures with multiple-level memory hierarchies. For users with more individual needs, SimpleScalar offers a documented and well-structured design, which simplifies extending the toolset to accomplish most arc...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2002
• Where: COMPUTER
• Authors: Todd M. Austin, Eric Larson, Dan Ernst
• Keywords: Architectural Modeling, Architectural Modeling Tasks, COMPUTER 2002, Model