ASPLOS 2008

Using the M5 Simulator ASPLOS 2008 Tutorial Sunday March 2nd, 2008

Introduction

This half-day tutorial will introduce participants to the M5 simulator system. M5 is a modular platform for computer system architecture research, encompassing system-level architecture as well as processor microarchitecture.

We will be discussing version 2.0 of the M5 simulator and specifically its new features including:

• Multiple ISA support (Alpha, ARM, MIPS, and SPARC)
• An execute-in-execute out-of-order SMT CPU timing model, with no SimpleScalar license encumbrance
• Message-oriented interface for memory system objects, designed to simplify the development of non-bus interconnects
• New caches models that are easier to modify
• New multi-level bus-based coherence protocol
• More extensive Python integration and scripting support
• Performance improvements
• Generating checkpoints for simpoints

Because the primary focus of the M5 development team has been simulation of network-oriented server workloads, M5 incorporates several features not commonly found in other simulators.

• Full-system simulation using unmodified Linux 2.4/2.6, FreeBSD, or Solaris (More are on the way)
• Detailed timing of I/O device accesses and DMA operations
• Accurate, deterministic simulation of multiple networked systems
• Flexible, script-driven configuration to simplify specification of complex multi-system configurations
• Included network workloads such as Apache, NAT, and NFS
• Support for storing results from multiple simulations in a unified database (e.g. MySQL) for automated reporting and graph generation

M5 also integrates a number of other desirable features, including pervasive object orientation, multiple interchangeable CPU models, an event-driven memory system model, and multiprocessor capability. Additionally, M5 is also capable of application-only simulation using syscall emulation.

M5 is freely distributable under a BSD-style license, and does not depend on any commercial or restricted-license software.

Intended Audience

Researchers in academia or industry looking for a free, open-source, full-system simulation environment for processor, system, or platform architecture studies. Please register via the ASPLOS 2008 web page.

Tentative Topics

The following topics will be discussed in detail during the tutorial:

• M5 structure
• Object structures
• Specifying configurations
• Object serialization (checkpoints)
• Events
• CPU models
• Memory/Cache models
• I/O devices
• Full-system modeling
• Statistics
• Debugging techniques
• ISA description language
• Future directions

Speakers

• Ali G. Saidi is a Ph.D. candidate in the EECS Department at the University of Michigan, and wrote much of the platform code for Linux full-system simulation. He received a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and an MSE in computer science and engineering from the University of Michigan.

• Steven K. Reinhardt is an associate professor in the EECS Department at the University of Michigan, and a principal developer of M5. He received a BS from Case Western Reserve University and an MS from Stanford University, both in electrical engineering, and a PhD in computer science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. While at Wisconsin, he was the principal developer of the Wisconsin Wind Tunnel parallel architecture simulator.

• Nathan L. Binkert is currently a Senior Research Scientist with HP Labs and a principal developer of M5. He received a BSE in electrical engineering and an MS and a PhD in computer science both from the University of Michigan. As an intern at Compaq VSSAD, he was a principal developer of the ASIM simulator, currently in widespread use at Intel.

• Steve Hines is a Ph.D. candidate in the CS Department at Florida State University, and created the ARM port of M5. He received a BS from Illinois Institute of Technology and an MS from Florida State University.

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