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Fast and Accurate Memory Simulation by Integrating DRAMSim2 into McSimA+

2018; Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute; Volume: 7; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3390/electronics7080152

2079-9292

Konstantin Bick, Duy Thanh Nguyen, Hyuk‐Jae Lee, Hyun Kim,

Real-Time Systems Scheduling

Computer architecture simulators play a crucial role in the verification of a new system’s design. However, a single simulator may not be sufficient in covering detailed modeling of the entire system, thereby lacking in the simulation of a specific functionality under investigation. In this case, combining two simulators is necessary to compensate for the drawbacks of a single simulator. This paper proposes the integration of DRAMSim2, a simulator that thoroughly models DDR-SDRAM main memory architecture, into the application-level+ simulator McSimA+. The challenges of achieving an efficient integration, especially the integration of a cycle-accurate simulator into an event-driven environment, are addressed. The combined simulator achieves high accuracy due to cycle-accurate simulation while maintaining high speed and flexibility of the event-driven application-level+ simulator. The new simulator’s overall system performance and the accuracy of the newly-integrated power model are verified against the gem5 simulator.