PKUsim-86: A cycle level full system simulator for x86 processor and AMBA-based SoC

Cycle level full system simulator based performance evaluation has been indispensable to increasingly complex System-on-Chip designs. Although x86 processors have been the most ubiquitous processors in both commercial and science computing world, there is a scarcity of open source simulators that enable academic researchers to experiment with new x86 microprocessor based designs. This paper presents a cycle level full system simulator for PKUnity-86 System-on-Chip platform, which is based on Geode GX x86 processor and AMBA bus architecture. PKUsim-86 can boot up Microsoft DOS, Windows 98, Windows XP and run common x86 applications. On-the-fly switching between the functional simulation and performance simulation mode is supported. PKUsim-86 executes 0.86 million simulated instructions per second on average. Compared with real machines, the relative accuracy of PKUsim-86 is acceptable.EI02351-3573