Using SimPoint for accurate and efficient simulation

Abstract

Modern architecture research relies heavily on detailed pipeline simulation. Simulating the full execution of a single industry standard benchmark at this level of detail takes on the order of months to complete. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that to properly perform an architectural evaluation requires multiple benchmarks to be evaluated across many separate runs. To address this issue we recently created a tool called SimPoint that automatically finds a small set of Simulation Points to represent the complete execution of a program for efficient and accurate simulation. In this paper we describe how to use the SimPoint tool, and introduce an improved SimPoint algorithm designed to significantly reduce the simulation time required when the simulation environment relies upon fast-forwarding.