Fast and accurate MPSoC virtual platform simulation with parallel out-of-order execution approach

Abstract

Virtual platform simulation is one of the most popular simulation techniques for multi-processor system-on-chips (MPSoCs). However, the complexity of modern MPSoCs leads to the unacceptable simulation speed on the virtual platform. To speed up the simulation, we propose a parallel out-of-order execution approach which efficiently applies the computation power of the multi-core system. The proposed approach includes a distributed memory exclusivity technique and a dynamic time-alignment mechanism (DTAM). Using the distributed memory exclusivity technique, multiple processor cores can be executed concurrently and multiple hardware components can be simulated in the out-of-order execution. The DTAM not only increases the simulation accuracy but also detects the parallel execution of the hardware simulation processes. With the benefits of the proposed approach, the experimental results show that the speedup is up to 266X compared to the conventional scheduling approach in SystemC.

Keywords:

• Virtual platform simulation
• multi-processor system-on-chip (MPSoC)
• parallel out-of-order execution