SEMCS: A Precise Memory-Hierarchy Simulation Framework on Parallel Full-System Simulator

The memory wall problem makes researches on memory hierarchy more and more important. And in these researches, software simulation plays a significant role. To model the real runtime environment, full system simulators have been widely used. However, researchers are often perplexed by the precise problem when they run a parallel program on a full system multi-core simulator, especially in multiple configurations. Because the influence arising from operating system and the relative execution speed of parallel threads often make the performance of target programs uncertain. To solve the precise problem, this paper proposes a single execution multi-configuration simulation framework (SEMCS). Then we design and implement a Simics module, called trans-multicast using the SEMCS framework. Finally, we test a benchmark from SPEComp2001 on a four core processor in three memory hierarchy configurations. And the result has verified the effectiveness of the SEMCS framework.