TECHNICAL ARTICLE Behavioral Simulation of Array Processors in the APES Environment

APES is an integrated, flexible CAD environment developed for behavioral design, simulation and evaluation of array processor architectures. This paper discusses in detail the core of the system, i.e., the behavioral simulator. This is an interactive subsystem which allows one to set up and run the simulation of the array using the definition of the array architecture supplied by the user. This task computes the output results of the whole array, of each processing element and of each functional unit. The concept of time is also defined and handled by the simulator so to allow subsequent performance evaluation. Functions are available for tracing, for inserting break-points, for step-by-step execution and for selection of display format. The simulator interacts with the other modules of APES (e.g., the Fault Injector, the Reconfiguration Manager) and produces results which can also be post-processed by other modules of APES (e.g., the Diagnostic Evaluator) to aid the designer in evaluating particular characteristics of the architecture