A simulation platform for multi-threaded architectures

Simulation is a powerful tool for studying behavior of novel architectures and improving their performance. However the time, effort and resources invested in developing a reliable simulator with the required level of detail may become prohibitively large. We present a simulation platform specifically designed to simulate the class of multithreaded architectures. The most important features of this simulator are its flexibility and ease of use. The simulation model provides the user with a wide range of design criteria, architectural parameters and workload characteristics. The simulation platform includes several tools, such as: an experiment planner, an interface to Matlab for processing and displaying results, and an interface to PVM for the execution of independent experiments in parallel. The simulation model is validated by comparison of analytical and experimental results.