An Automatic Debugging Tool of Instruction-Driven Multicore Systems with Synchronization Points

TL;DR

This paper introduces an automatic debugging tool for instruction-driven multicore systems that uses synchronization points to efficiently identify error-triggered instructions, reducing debugging complexity.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel automatic debugging approach leveraging synchronization points to locate errors in multicore systems more efficiently than traditional methods.

Findings

Algorithm complexity analysis shows improved efficiency.

Counting executed instructions validates the tool's effectiveness.

The tool successfully identifies error-triggered instructions in simulations.

Abstract

Tracing back the instruction execution sequence to debug a multicore system can be very time-consuming because the relationships of the instructions can be very complex. For instructions that cannot be checked by the environment immediately after their executions, the errors they triggered can propagate through the instruction execution sequence. Our task is to find the error-triggered instructions automatically. This paper presents an automatic debugging tool that can leverage the synchronization points in the instruction execution sequences of the multicore system being verified to locate the instruction which results in simulation error automatically. To evaluate the performance of the debugging tool, we analyze the complexity of the algorithms and count the number of instructions executed to locate the aimed instruction.