Microprocessor research and development increasingly relies on detailed simulations to make design choices. As such, simulator accuracy is of increasing importance to the field. This paper breaks down accuracy, a broad term, into two main types: relative and absolute. We then discuss typical abstraction errors in power-performance simulators and show when they do (or do not) affect the design choices a user of those simulators might make. By performing this validation study using the Wattch simulator, we feel that the work helps to address validation issues both broadly and in the specific case of a widely-used simulator. design methodologies, etc. Absolute accuracy is degraded due to all of these conditions.
By: David Brooks, Pradip Bose, Margaret Martonosi
Published in: RC22621 in 2002
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