Proceedings of the 38th Design Automation Conference (IEEE Cat. No.01CH37232) · 2002 · 52 citations · 0 references
EngineeringComputer EngineeringComputer ScienceComputer ArchitectureHardware-software Co-designMicroelectronicsHardware DebuggingInstruction Set ArchitectureMicroarchitecture DesignProcessor Core DesignProcessor MicroarchitecturePost-silicon DebuggingProcessor ArchitectureSilicon
Developing a new leading edge IA-32 micro-processor is an immensely complicated undertaking. In the case of the Pentium© 4 processor, the microarchitecture is significantly more complex than any previous IA-32 microprocessor and the implementation borrows almost nothing from any previous implementation. This paper describes how we went about the task of finding bugs in the Pentium© 4 processor design prior to initial silicon, and what we found along the way.