Simulation of SIMD and MIMD shared memory architectures on Unix-based systems

A set of tools to simulate SIMD (single instruction multiple data) and MIMD (multiple instruction multiple data) shared memory architectures on multitasking sequential systems is presented. The main objective of these tools is to evaluate parallel computing systems. As is well known, the performance of the parallel algorithms, unlike that of serial algorithms, is very machine dependent. The simulation is based on an algorithm-driven approach, allowing the test and evaluation of algorithms for this type of architecture. The evaluation of the algorithms is done at run-time, making possible the acquisition of very realistic results. Different levels of evaluation can be applied. More accurate results are achieved at the expense of more simulation time. Simulation tools have been developed in C language for Unix based systems, assuring portability among a large class of computing systems. The tools presented have been extensively used to simulate orthogonal multiprocessing systems, especially for the development and simulation of several image processing algorithms. Experimental results show that a good approach to the real system operation has been achieved