Abstract
Functional-level simulators have become an indispensable tool in designing today's processors. They help to exploit the design space and evaluate various design options so as to derive a suitable processor microarchitecture. Although Intel's x86 series processors are the most popular CPU in the computers, there are only a few simulation tools available for studying these processors. This paper introduces such a simulation tool. Internally it simulates a decoupled decode/encode architecture and has a RISC core. It is trace-driven and thus has a tracing system, a trace sampling system, and a processor simulator. We will describe the internal workings of the simulation tool and demonstrate how it can be used in evaluating a specific x86-compatible processor.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 427-446 |
Number of pages | 20 |
Journal | International Journal of High Speed Computing |
Volume | 10 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 1999 |