Comparing analytical modeling with simulation for network processors: a case study

Author

Gries, Matthias ; Kulkarni, Chidamber ; Sauer, Christian ; Keutzer, Kurt

Author_Institution

California Univ., Berkeley, CA, USA

fYear

2003

fDate

2003

Firstpage

256

Abstract

Programming network processors remains an art due to the variety of different network processor architectures and due to little support to reason and explore implementations on such architectures. We present a case study of mapping an IPv4 forwarding switch application on the Intel IXP1200 network processor and we compare this implementation with an analytical model of both the application and architecture used to evaluate different design alternatives. Our results not only show that we are able to model the IXP1200 and our application within 15% of the accuracy compared to that of IXP1200 simulation, but also find closely matching trends for different workloads. This shows the clear potential of such analytical techniques for design space exploration.

Keywords

logic simulation; microprocessor chips; microprogramming; multi-threading; packet switching; IXPI200 network processor; analytical processor modeling; forwarding switch application; high-level design space exploration; multithreading; network processor programming; packet switching; processor simulation; Analytical models; Art; Assembly; Computational modeling; Computer aided software engineering; Instruction sets; Programming profession; Reduced instruction set computing; Space exploration; Switches;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition, 2003

ISSN

1530-1591

Print_ISBN

0-7695-1870-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/DATE.2003.1253838

Filename

1253838