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SimpleScalar 3.0 release
------------------------
Greetings, SimpleScalar release 3.0 is now available.
We've completed implementation and internal regression testing, and now we
need current users to start testing this code. In particular, we would
really appreciate:
1) bug reports and/or bug fixes
2) fixes and/or testing results on platforms not listed below
3) comments/suggestions regarding this release in general
To assist in your testing, we've included SimpleScalar PISA and Alpha
OSF Unix test binaries in the simulator distribution.
To get the release, point your browser at the directory:
http://www.simplescalar.com
and get the file:
simplesim-3.0c.tar.gz
Then unpack this in a directory you've made and read the README in the
"simplesim-3.0/" directory for installation, usage, and testing
instructions.
We hope you find this release useful, please send comments/fixes/suggestions
to info@simplescalar.com. Enjoy!
Regards, -Todd
p.s. the 3.0 release announcement is attached...
-- ANNOUNCE --
Greetings, we are pleased to announce the availability of the third major
release of the SimpleScalar Architectural Research Tool Set. It is our
hope that computer architecture researchers and educators will find this
release of value. We welcome your feedback, Enjoy!!
WHAT IS THE SIMPLESCALAR TOOL SET?
The SimpleScalar Tool Set consists of compiler, assembler, linker and
simulation tools for the SimpleScalar PISA and Alpha AXP architectures.
With this tool set, the user can simulate real programs on a range of
modern processors and systems, using fast execution-driven simulation. The
tool set contains many simulators ranging from a fast functional simulator
to a detailed out-of-order issue processor with a multi-level memory
system. The tool set provides researchers and educators with an easily
extensible, portable, high-performance test bed for systems design or
instruction.
The SimpleScalar PISA (Portable ISA) instruction set is an extension of
Hennessy and Patterson's DLX instruction set, including also a number of
instructions and addressing modes from the MIPS-IV and RS/6000
instruction set definitions. SimpleScalar PISA instructions employ a
64-bit encoding to facilitate instruction set research, e.g., it's
possible to synthesize instructions or annotate existing instructions,
or vary the number of registers a program uses. The Alpha AXP
architecture is a RISC instruction set developed by DEC.
The SimpleScalar simulator suite includes a wide range of simulation tools
ranging from simple functional (instruction only, no timing) simulators to
detailed performance (instruction plus timing) simulators. The following
simulators are included in this release:
sim-fast -> a very fast functional (i.e., no timing) simulator
sim-safe -> the minimal functional SimpleScalar simulator
sim-profile -> a program profiling simulator
sim-cache -> a multi-level cache simulator
sim-cheetah -> a single-pass multi-configuration cache simulator
sim-bpred -> a branch predictor simulator
sim-outorder -> a detailed out-of-order issue performance (timing)
simulator with a multi-level memory system
All the simulators in the SimpleScalar tools set are execution-driven, as a
result, there is no need to generate, store, or read instruction trace files
since all instructions streams are generated on the fly. In addition,
execution-driven simulation is an invaluable tool for modeling control and data
mis-speculation in the performance simulators.
WHY WOULD I WANT TO USE THE SIMPLESCALAR TOOL SET?
The SimpleScalar Tool Set has many powerful features, here's the short list:
- it's free for academic non-commercial use, and all sources are included
- it's extensible (because it includes all sources and extensive docs)
- it's portable (it run on most any unix-like host including WinNT)
- it's fast (on a P6-200, function simulation -> 4+ MIPS, and detailed
out-of-order performance simulation with a multi-level memory
system and mispeculation modeling cruises at 150+ KIPS)
- it's detailed (a whole family of simulators are included)
WHY WOULD I NOT WANT TO USE THE SIMPLESCALAR TOOL SET?
- it doesn't execute the instruction set I'm interested in: currently
SimpleScalar only supports the SimpleScalar PISA and Alpha AXP
instruction set architectures
- it doesn't support parallel system simulation: currently
SimpleScalar is primarily a uniprocessor simulation environment;
and although work is ongoing to add MP support, other simulation
environments may be more appropriate for your work (e.g., RSIM
from Rice or SimOS from Stanford both support MP simulation)
- it doesn't support system simulation: currently SimpleScalar
only supports simulation of the user-level instructions, any
execution within the operation system is not simulated, instead
the SimpleScalar simulators execute the system-level instruction
on behalf of the simulated program, other simulation environments
support system simulation, such as SimOS from Stanford
HOW DO I GET IT?
The tool set is available from the University of Wisconsin, to access
the SimpleScalar Home Page, point your browser at:
http://www.simplescalar.com
WHO WROTE THE SIMPLESCALAR TOOL SET?
The SimpleScalar tool set simulators and GNU compiler ports were written by
Todd Austin. The tool set is currently supported by Doug Burger (who wrote
much of the documentation as well) and Todd Austin. The GNU compiler chain
was written by the Free Software Foundation.
ON WHICH PLATFORMS DOES IT RUN?
SimpleScalar should port easily to any 32- or 64-bit flavor of UNIX or
Windows NT, particularly those that support POSIX-compliant system
calls. The list of tested platforms are:
gcc/AIX413/RS6k
xlc/AIX413/RS6k
gcc/FreeBSD3.0/x86
gcc/HPUX/PA-RISC
c89/HPUX/PA-RISC
gcc/SunOS413/SPARC
gcc/Solaris2/SPARC
gcc/Solaris2/x86
gcc/Linux/x86
gcc/Linux/Alpha
gcc/DECOSFUnix/Alpha
cc/DECOSFUnix/Alpha
gcc/CygWin32-WinNT/x86
VC++/WinNT/x86
HOW CAN I KEEP INFORMED AS TO NEW RELEASES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS?
We have set up a SimpleScalar mailing list. To subscribe, send e-mail to
majordomo@cs.wisc.edu, with the message body (not the subject header)
containing "subscribe simplescalar". Also, watch the SimpleScalar web
page at:
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~mscalar/simplescalar.html
WHAT'S NEW IN RELEASE 3.0:
Lots! Here's a list of the major new features...
* SimpleScalar now executes multiple instruction sets: SimpleScalar
PISA (Portable ISA, the old "SimpleScalar ISA") and Alpha AXP.
All simulators and options (e.g., DLite!) are supported for both
instruction sets. See README for details on compiling binaries
and configuring the simulators. See README.retarget for details
on how to retarget the SimpleScalar tool set to another
instruction set. As always, the SimpleScalar/PISA tools will
build on any supported platform. The SimpleScalar/Alpha tools
will build on any little-endian host with 64-bit integers (either
in hardware or via the compiler), the SimpleScalar/Alpha tools are
known to be stable on Alpha OSF Unix and Linux/x86 hosts.
* All simulators now support external I/O traces (EIO traces).
Generated with a new simulator (sim-eio), EIO traces capture
initial program state and all subsequent external interactions a
program has with the operating system. Using this external I/O
trace, any SimpleScalar simulator can re-execute the same
execution using only the EIO file; no options, binaries, files,
system calls, etc, are needed to re-create the same execution.
All other aspects of the execution is identical, i.e., the same
functional simulation is performed, either non-speculative or
otherwise. See the file README.eio for usage details. EIO traces
solve a number of perennial problems associated with functional
simulation:
- EIO trace executions are 100% reproducible, since the sources
of irreproducibility (i.e., external interactions such as
reading a date from the OS) are captured in the EIO trace
file; it is now possible to run simulations from EIO traces,
even with mis-speculation modeling, and get *exactly* the same
results ever time!
- EIO trace files provide a convenient method to execute
interactive programs in batch mode; programs that read any
number of files, user input, or output including network I/O
will read this I/O from a single EIO trace file.
- EIO trace files are extremely portable, any host that will
build SimpleScalar can execute any EIO trace even if the host
only has minimal minimal system call support, e.g., Windows
NT. This is because system calls are not performed with EIO
traces, all external interactions are read from the EIO trace
file, which only requires that only simple file I/O be
performed by the simulator.
In addition, EIO traces provide a convenient means for packaging
up an experiment into a single file. Within the EIO trace file
are the options, user environment, file accesses, network I/O,
etc. used to create the original experiment. Moreover, EIO
traces also capture the output of a program, e.g., writes, network
output, etc. The simulators check any output attempted against
that recorded in the EIO trace file, making EIO trace files
self-validating. An EIO trace file may be compressed with GZIP or
compress, the SimpleScalar simulators will automagically
decompress them on the fly, as long as the simulator can locate
your GZIP binary.
* The simulators now compile "out of the box" on many more platforms
(listed above); in addition, you should be able to get
SimpleScalar up and running with minimal effort on any target with
32- or 64-bit integers, IEEE FP, and POSIX-like system calls. See
README.port for details on how to port the SimpleScalar tool set
to a new host environment. In addition, SimpleScalar now builds
on Windows NT with either MS VC++ or Cygnus/Win32 tools. See
README.winnt for caveats regarding the Windows NT ports.
And here's a list of other sundry enhancements we've made since the
SimpleScalar 2.0 release:
Enhancements to the foundation modules:
* the EXO persistent data structure library has been incorporated
into SimpleScalar release 2.1; this library is used by the EIO
trace module; it implements extensive collection of scalar and
container data structures with run-time typing; once constructed
EXO data structures can be automagically written to and read from
file streams with a single function call, the EXO library handles
all the gory details of interning and externing the data
structures from/to ASCII form, generally useful code if you hate
to use scanf() and printf() for saving and restoring arbitrary
data structures; see "libexo/libexo.h" for details...
* added explicit fault support to functional simulation component
and memory module
* memory module updated to support 64/32-bit address spaces on
64/32-bit machines, now implemented with a dynamically optimized
hashed page table
* added support for multiple register and memory contexts
* improved loader error messages, e.g., loading Alpha binaries on
PISA-configured simulator (or vice versa) indicates specifically
what happened
* added portable myprintf() and myatoq() routines for printing and
reading quadword's, respectively; works on machines without hardware
quadword data types
* added gzopen() and gzclose() routines for reading and writing
compressed files, updated sysprobe to search for GZIP, if found
support is enabled
* F_IMM (immediate field used by instruction) flag to machine.def flags
* "contrib/" directory contains various enhancements that (unfortunately)
I did not get time to include into the mainline release - there's a
lot of gold to mine in that directory, check it out!
* BITMAP_COUNT_ONES() added to bitmap.h
* added register pretty printing routines to machine.[hc]
New simulator options/statistics:
* added option "-max:inst" to limit number of instructions analyzed
* added simulator and program output redirection (via "-redir:sim"
and "redir:prog" options, respectively)
* added "-nice" option that resets simulator scheduling priority to
specified level
* all simulators now emit command line used to invoke them
* added fast forward option ("-fastfwd") to sim-outorder that skips a
specified number of instructions (using functional simulation)
before starting timing simulation
* explicit BTB sizing option added to branch predictors, use "-btb"
option to configure BTB
* branch predictor updates in sim-outorder can now optionally occur
in ID, WB, or CT, user selectable via the "-bpred:spec_update" option
* return address stack (RAS) performance stats improved
* added queue statistics for IFQ, RUU, and LSQ; all terms of
Little's law are measured and reported; the fraction of cycles in
which queue is full is also measured
* added control registers display command "cregs" to DLite!
* added "-t" option on sysprobe that probes sizes of various C data types
* new smaller cleaner minimal functional simulator skeleton
Performance enhancements:
* added support for fast shifts if host machine can successfully
implement them, sysprobe tests if fast shifts work and then sets
-DFAST_SRA and -DFAST_SRL accordingly; this also fixes shifts when
the high order bit is set for some machines; define -DSLOW_SHIFTS
to disable this feature
* branch predictor module's L2 index computation is more
"compatible" to McFarling's version of it, i.e., if the PC xor
address component is only part of the index, take the lower order
address bits for the other part of the index, rather than the
higher order ones
* sim-fast now autodetects GNU GCC jump table support and enables
USE_JUMP_TABLE
* sim-outorder speculative loads no longer allocate memory pages,
this significantly reduces memory requirements for programs with
lots of mispeculation (e.g., cc1)
* speculative fault handling simplified
* instruction pre-decoding added to loader module for SimpleScalar/PISA,
added to sim-fast for SimpleScalar/Alpha
Portability enhancements:
* reorganized instruction semantics definitions; now using
name-mangled macros, this approach is very portable (it even works
on MS VC++) and it allows C statements to portably implement
instruction semantics
* reorganized Makefile: it now works with MS VC++ NMAKE, and many
host configurations are supplied in the header; added target
configuration support; converted "sim-tests" target to use
"-redir:sim" and "-redir:prog" options, this eliminates the need
for the non-portable "redir" scripts
* implemented a more portable random() interface
* added support for MS VC++ compilation on Windows NT
And here's a list of fixes we've made since the SimpleScalar 2.0 release:
* LWL/LWR/SWL/SWR semantics fixed in pisa.def, these instruction now
work correctly on big- and little-endian machines, this fixes all
previous problems with IJPEG failing during functional simulation
* fixed a BFD/non-BFD loader problem where tail padding in the text
segment was not correctly allocated in simulator memory; when
padding region happened to cross a page boundary the final text
page has a NULL pointer in mem_table, resulting in a SEGV when
trying to access it in instruction pre-decoding
* sim-outorder speculative memory access functions now return a
deterministic value (0) when accessing bogus address/alignment;
mis-speculation modeling should now be 100% deterministic with
EIO traces
* fixed speculative quadword store bug (missing most significant word)
* disabled calls to sbrk() under malloc(), this breaks some
malloc() implementation (e.g., newer Linux releases)
* sim-outorder perfect branch predictor was reseting IFQ head
incorrectly (improves sim performance)
* sim-outorder now really does limit issue width (was always infinite)
* sim-outorder and sim-cache gave broken error messages if invalid IL2
params were specified
* instruction address compression (64->32 bit) added to sim-cache
* BITMAP_NOT() fixed
* return address stack (RAS) update bug fixed (improves pred perf)
* fixed a cache timing bug that caused some incorrect and *huge* miss
latencies around 2 billion cycles; fixes occasional deadlock problems
in vortex
* fixed cache writeback stats for cache flushes
* fixed DLite! "help" command for invalid commands
* options package fixes: on/off supported for booleans, relative
pathnames, negative integers are now parsed correctly
* -max:inst is limited to 2147483647 for sim-cheetah due to integer
overflow problems in libcheetah (to be fixed...)
* sim-outorder now computes correct result when a non-speculative
register operand is also defined speculative within the same inst
* Perl scripts now work with Perl 5.0
Please send up your comments regarding this tool set, we are continually
trying to improve it and we appreciate your input.
Best Regards,
Todd Austin
SimpleScalar LLC, info@simplescalar.com
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