by Fred and Hui Yan

Original repo: https://github.com/maguire/MIPS-Simulator (credit to user 'maguire')

• Add support for more instructions
• Read and convert from elf32-bigmips
• Fixed bugs in existing implementation
• Adding preprocessing and data dependency checking
• Basic statistics collecting

• An instruction set simulator to model and accurately predict the behavior of instructions' execution.
• Starts with a MIPS model, and will progressively modify according to the iDEA model (https://github.com/brosser/iDEA-Simulator).
• Main motivations:
  • to obtain instruction count.
  • to identify hazards / data dependencies.
  • to ensure logical and functional correctness.
  • to analyse opportunity for composite instructions.
• Cycle-accurate simulator is not needed for now. If the simulator doesn't fulfill the requirements above, then we will move on to a cycle-accurate one.

• Assembler
  • Pre-processing tasks: Reads the MIPs asm code generated and grabs the necessary values
  • Analysis: Dependency checks and nop insertions
  • Code optimization: Profiler that checks for opportunities for composite instructions
  • Code generation: Generates the code for simulator, and for IM and DM.
• Simulator
  • Accepts the asm code generated and emulates the execution of the code instructions.
  • Dumps a log file of instruction pipelines.

python run-simulator.py [options] <Input ASM> <Sim. Log> <Sim. ASM File> <Preproc. Log> <Memory Dump>

Example:

python src/run-simulator.py -v benchmark/toy/median/median-O2.asm

Only the Assembler Input File is a required input, others are optional (default filenames are used).

The input file uses the format elf32-bigmips.

• --version Show program's version number and exit.
• -h, --help Show help message and exit.
• -v, --verbose Print cycle by cycle debug information to simulaton log file.

• <Simulation Run Log File> Log file from simulation, showing final register file state, accessed data memory and run statistics
• <Simulation Assembly File> The processed Assembly code as input to the simulator
• <Preprocessing Log File> Preprocessing logfile, specifying NOP-insertions, branch address recalculations and parse log
• <Data Memory Dump File> Pre-simulation data memory dump

./runSimulations.sh.

Bash script that automatically runs all benchmarks and outputs cycle count.