Title :
Massively parallel switch-level simulation: a feasibility study
Author :
Kravitz, Saul A. ; Bryant, Randal E. ; Rutenbar, Rob A.
Author_Institution :
Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA, USA
fDate :
7/1/1991 12:00:00 AM
Abstract :
The feasibility of mapping the COSMOS switch-level simulator onto a computer with thousands of simple processors is addressed. COSMOS preprocesses transistor networks into Boolean behavioral models, capturing the switch-level behavior of a circuit in a set of Boolean formulas. A class of massively parallel computers and a mapping of COSMOS onto these computers are described. The factors affecting the performance of such a massively parallel simulator are discussed, including: the amount of parallelism in the simulation model, performance measures for massively parallel machines, and the impact of event scheduling on simulator performance. Compilation tools that automatically map a MOS circuit onto a massively parallel computer have been developed. Techniques for restructuring Boolean expressions for greater parallelism and mapping Boolean expressions for evaluation on massively parallel machines are described. Massively parallel switch-level simulation is illustrated by a pilot implementation on a 32k-processor Thinking Machines Connection Machine system
Keywords :
Boolean functions; circuit analysis computing; parallel algorithms; Boolean behavioral models; COSMOS; MOS circuit; event scheduling; massively parallel computers; parallel switch-level simulation; pilot implementation; transistor networks; Circuit simulation; Communication switching; Computational modeling; Computer simulation; Concurrent computing; Discrete event simulation; Logic; Parallel machines; Parallel processing; Switching circuits;
Journal_Title :
Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems, IEEE Transactions on
