Evaluation of Chip Multiprocessor Simulators

This thesis presents some of the simulators that are available for simulation of computer architectures, with a special emphasis on simulating chip multiprocessor (CMP) architectures. The simulators Rsim, Asim, SimOS, Simics, TFsim, SimFlex, GEMS and M5 are described, in addition to an extension to SimpleScalar written at the department. The simulators have been evaluated according to various criteria, such as availability, extensibility, simulation platform, etc. The simulator M5, which has been selected as a good choice for use in the group for computer architecture research at the department, has been evaluated in more detail. The simulator has favourable characteristics such as good extensibility through modular design and pervasive object orientation, support for both full system simulation and syscall emulation, an active development team and user forum, and a fair amount of available documentation