Fast Trace Generation of Many-Core Embedded Systems with Native Simulation

TL;DR

This paper introduces an extension to the native simulation framework SCoPE that enables fast trace generation for many-core embedded systems, facilitating early performance estimation and visualization during software development.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel method to generate trace files from native simulation, improving early performance analysis for complex embedded systems.

Findings

Enables early performance estimation before hardware availability

Facilitates visualization of embedded system behavior

Supports optimization of software development process

Abstract

Embedded Software development and optimization are complex tasks. Late availably of hardware platforms, their usual low visibility and controllability, and their limiting resource constraints makes early performance estimation an attractive option instead of using the final execution platform. With early performance estimation, software development can progress although the real hardware is not yet available or it is too complex to interact with. In this paper, we present how the native simulation framework SCoPE is extended to generate OTF trace files. Those trace files can be later visualized with trace visualization tools, which recently were only used to optimize HPC workloads in order to iterate in the development process.