Fast and Scalable Simulation Framework for Large In-Order Chip Multiprocessors

Abstract

As chip technology advances, the number of cores in mainstream chip multiprocessors (CMP) increases, so chips with hundreds of cores may become common within a decade. One of the challenges this trend sets to computer architects is to make the current CMP designs scalable to larger numbers of cores. A tool set that would allow us to predict how various design decisions may affect the performance of larger CMPs is therefore necessary. In this paper, we present a trace-based simulation framework we devised for Elbrus microprocessor family. Its core component, the CMP simulator is scalable to at least one thousand of cores and allows to evaluate the kilo-core CMP performance in just a few days using a mainstream 16-core host computer. It is also highly flexible and architecture-agnostic and, therefore, could be used to simulate other in-order architectures. We validated the framework against a real machine and achieved an average accuracy of 18 percent in single-core tests and 15 percent in four-core, an average error in relative slowdown evaluation of 2.6 percent, and average absolute errors in L2 and L3 cache miss rates within 0.3 bytes per cycle.

Keywords

• chip multi-processors
• trace-based simulation
• kilo-core