SuSeSim: a fast simulation strategy to find optimal L1 cache configuration for embedded systems

Abstract

Simulation of an application is a popular and reliable approach to find the optimal configuration of level one cache memory for an application specific embedded system processor. However, long simulation time is one of the main disadvantages of simulation based approaches. In this paper, we propose a new and fast simulation method, Super Set Simulator (SuSeSim). While previous methods use Top-Down searching strategy, SuSeSim utilizes a Bottom-Up search strategy along with a new elaborate data structure to reduce the search space to determine a cache hit or miss. SuSeSim can simulate hundreds of cache configurations simultaneously by reading an application's memory request trace just once. Total number of cache hits and misses are accurately recorded. Depending on different cache block sizes and benchmark applications, SuSeSim can reduce the number of tags to be checked by up to 43% compared to the existing fastest simulation approach (the CRCB algorithm). With the help of a faster search and an easy to maintain data structure, SuSeSim can be up to 94% faster in simulating memory requests compared to the CRCB algorithm.