SIMPLE POWER


Getting started and installation guide
Download SimplePower
Who are using SimplePower?

Getting started and installation guide
Table of contents

* general description of SimplePower
* system requirements
* installation
* simulation
* sample run
* limitations



1. General description of SimplePower

SimplePower is an execution driven, cycle-accurate RT level energy estimation tool that uses transition sensitive energy models for in-order 5-stage pipelined datapath. Perfect cache  is assumed for this release. The ISA of simulated machine is a subset of the instruction set (the integer part excluding division) of Simplescalar. For architectural details, see 'architecture.eps' in the simpower directory. Refer to the paper appeared in DAC'00 ('T
he Design and Use of SimplePower: A Cycle Accurate Energy Estimation Tool'). For a description of the data path click here
.


2. System requirements

This version of SimplePower is tested only on Unix running Sun machines and simplescalar release 2.5.2. About 13.5MB of disk space is required.
 
 
3. Installation

% gunzip -c simpower.tar.gz | tar -xvf -
will create a directory 'simpower' in your current directory.
Change to simpower directory and
%make
will create an executable file 'simpower' in the directory. If errors caused by system include files are met, try 'make depend' before making it. SimlePower uses a couple of simple tcsh shell scripts. To set the correct path  for these files,
%configure

 
4. Simulation

To compile your benchmark for simpower : %create_power_bench bench_name (without extension)Your benchmark should start with _start() not main(). 'create_power_bench' is a shell script. It calls three simplescalr executables located in simplescalar/bin. It also links your objects with start.o. If these executables and start.o does not work for your system, refer to simplescalar web site.

To run your power simulations :
%simpower35 bench_name.bin (simpower8 for 0.8 technology simulation)
 
SimPower supports these useful command options :
-h  : help
-nopower : disables power simulation
-debug : shows cycle by cycle capacitive load
-gatedpipereg <true|false> : simulates in gated pipeline register mode if true
For further options, type simpower35(simpower8) -h


5. Sample run

* 'samplebench' directory contains simple benchmarks and results.
'Total capacitive load' in the bsrch.res can be used to get your total energy consumption (E = C*V^2).


6. Limitations

* Perfect cache is assumed for this release.
* Integer divisions are not implemented.
* Clock power is not implemented.
* Control logic power is not implemented.
* Floating point instructions are not implemented.
* System calls are not implemented
 

Download SimplePower
We want to know who downloads this tool.
Please fill in this form. You will be redirected to a page with further instructions.

Your Name:            

Your Organization:  

Your Email:             

For further questions, email to ilin@cse.psu.edu