Method of Converting a Microprocessor Software Performance Model to FPGA-based Hardware Simulator

摘要

To maintain low simulation time as continuous improvements are made to the performance model accuracy, FPGAs can provide a cost-effective option to achieve the goal of fast simulation. In this paper, we describe a novel method for converting a software model to an FPGA-based model. It allows developing the fast FPGA-based simulator during the architecture research stage with small effort by leveraging existing software simulator design. We also evaluate and enhance the FPGA-based HAsim microarchitectural simulation framework.