Developing Visualization Tools for an Out-of-Order Execution Simulator

Researchers and students require visualization tools in order to efficiently evaluate microprocessor designs as they run in a simulator. The SimpleScalar toolkit, a popular and versatile program for simulating numerous processors, would benefit from such tools. While some visualization tools have been made before for SimpleScalar, few have yet supported the out-of-order execution simulator, where independent instructions are processed in parallel, out of program order. There are several factors that a designer must assess to develop visualization tools that can run on numerous hardware architectures and operating systems: code portability, the graphical user interface (GUI), and running speed. Code portability refers to the choice of programming language/languages and supported compilers and platforms, which determines the system configuration required to run the software. The design of the graphical user interface determines the effectiveness with which a user can interact with the visualization tool, and the underlying simulator itself. Both of these factors will have an effect o