Integration of performance evaluations in the design process of CPUs and computer systems

Abstract

Performance evaluations often receive insufficient attention during the design of a computer system due to the cost of modelling and the lack of quantitative values for model parameters. Nevertheless, cost could be reduced significantly and values could be better estimated if information which already emerged in component designs was made available. In this contribution a concept is presented which links the different “worlds” of computer design, CPU design, and performance evaluation to enable the exchange of information. Generic objects for the hardware components and for the workload predefine a hierarchy of control flow models with associated tasks. Thus, results from CPU analyses can be used in computer system models to describe the CPU behaviour. Just as results from computer analyses can be used for a CPU design. The workload consists of CPU instructions, base algorithms, and processes. Standard instructions support the specification of a CPU's instruction set, base algorithms represent the workload for CPUs and realize an interface to the computer system models where the workload is composed of base algorithms. The i/o-behaviour of a CPU model for the different base algorithms is recorded and re-executed in a computer system model.