A Simulation Times Model of Multi-core Simulation

Chip multi-processor (CMP) increases processor throughput by duplicating resources for many threads. Due to the main frequency of a single processor approaching to limit, CMP is becoming more and more popular. However, it is not well studied how to evaluate a new CMP design by simulation. This paper analyzes the possible organizations of cores on a CMP and then presents a mathematical model for the simulation times. It also provides a sampling policy used to reduce the simulation times. The sampling experiments show that the simulation time is 7.5 days under condition that the required confidence level is 95% and confidence interval is 4 when the benchmarks in SPEC CPU2000 are used. As for the simulation of CMPs, the simulation time is very short.