[comp.parallel] Simulation of Multiprocessors.

hhd0@gte.com (Horace Dediu) (10/24/88)

Greetings!

I am interested in developing a flexible simulator for multiprocessor
architectures.  That is, developing a formal description language for
multi-functional-unit machines and using the description to simulate the
architecture to determine performance.  The description would include the
interconnection network (a graph) and the processor description (in ISPS
notation [Barbacci '80]).  I know simulators exist for particular machines,
but I want to build a flexible simulator, in which the architecture is a
free variable.

Note that this means simulation *of* multiprocessors on uniprocessors,
not simulation *on* multiprocessors.  I would like to know what others
have done in this area.  Preliminary searches have not yielded much.  If
anyone knows about research in this area, please mail or post.  I promise a
summary.

I thank you all,
Horace Dediu    hhd0@gte.com

zenith@uunet.UU.NET (Steven Zenith) (10/27/88)

Greetings!
Horace Dediu writes:

> I am interested in developing a flexible simulator for multiprocessor
> architectures.  That is, developing a formal description language for
> multi-functional-unit machines and using the description to simulate the
> architecture to determine performance.  The description would include the
> interconnection network (a graph) and the processor description (in ISPS
> notation [Barbacci '80]).  [...]

Maybe I don't understand this question properly (being new to this 
newsgroup). CSP and Occam are both languages able to provide a formal
description of "multi-functional-unit" machines. They do both assume
that the system is founded on a Communicating Process *Architecture*.
However, a "simulation" of any *configuration* of such units may be
written in Occam and performance evaluated on a single transputer.

> [...] I want to build a flexible simulator, in which the architecture is a
> free variable.

Again, I may be misunderstanding, do you mean 'architecture' or
'configuration'. Do you mean you are looking for a generalised notation
of some kind?



 *  Steven Ericsson Zenith
 |  zenith@inmos.uucp (INMOS Bristol, England)
    ** The tao that can be told is not the eternal tao **