ESESC: A fast multicore simulator using Time-Based Sampling

Architects rely on simulation in their exploration of the design space. However, slow simulation speed caps their productivity and limits the depth of their exploration. Sampling has been a commonly used remedy. While sampling is shown to be an effective technique for single core processors, its application has been limited to simulation of multi-program, throughput applications only. This work presents Time-Based Sampling (TBS), a framework that is the first to enable sampling in simulation of multicore processors with virtually no limitation in terms of application type (multi-programmed or multithreaded), number of cores, homogeneity or heterogeneity of the simulated configuration (4.99% error averaged across all the evaluated configurations). TBS also is the first to enable integrated power and temperature evaluation in statistically sampled simulation of multicore systems (with 5.5% and 2.4% error on average, respectively). We implement an architectural simulator based on TBS, called ESESC, that provides a holistic set of tools for a fair evaluation of different architectures.