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ProtoFlex: Towards Scalable, FullSystem Multiprocessor Simulations Using FPGAs (2009)
| Venue: | ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems |
| Citations: | 22 - 2 self |
BibTeX
@ARTICLE{Chung09protoflex:towards,
author = {Eric S. Chung and Michael K. Papamichael and Eriko Nurvitadhi and James C. Hoe and Ken Mai},
title = {ProtoFlex: Towards Scalable, FullSystem Multiprocessor Simulations Using FPGAs},
journal = {ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems},
year = {2009}
}
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Abstract
Functional full-system simulators are powerful and versatile research tools for accelerating architectural exploration and advanced software development. Their main shortcoming is limited throughput when simulating large multiprocessor systems with hundreds or thousands of processors or when instrumentation is introduced. We propose the PROTOFLEX simulation architecture, which uses FPGAs to accelerate full-system multiprocessor simulation and to facilitate high-performance instrumentation. Prior FPGA approaches that prototype a complete system in hardware are either too complex when scaling to large-scale configurations or require significant effort to provide full-system support. In contrast, PROTOFLEX virtualizes the execution of many logical processors onto a consolidated number of multiple-context execution engines on the FPGA. Through virtualization, the number of engines can be judiciously scaled, as needed, to deliver on necessary simulation performance at a large savings in complexity. Further, to achieve low-complexity full-system support, a hybrid simulation technique called transplanting allows implementing in the FPGA only the frequently encountered behaviors, while a software simulator preserves the abstraction of a complete system. We have created a first instance of the PROTOFLEX simulation architecture, which is an FPGAbased,
Keyphrases
towards scalable fullsystem multiprocessor simulation using fpgas protoflex simulation architecture complete system full-system support large-scale configuration software simulator necessary simulation performance advanced software development high-performance instrumentation main shortcoming many logical processor versatile research tool prior fpga low-complexity full-system support large multiprocessor system architectural exploration significant effort functional full-system simulator transplanting allows large saving first instance consolidated number hybrid simulation technique encountered behavior multiple-context execution engine full-system multiprocessor simulation
