Simics Accelerator
Simics Accelerator ensures that, regardless of model complexity, the simulation can run fast enough to satisfy software and systems developers who are accustomed to working with physical hardware.
Simics Accelerator allows the full complement of host-processing and host-memory resources to be applied to running a Simics model. Simics Accelerator distributes the simulation workload across multiple processor cores on a single host platform, or across the processor cores of several network-connected hosts. When Simics Accelerator is employed, the result is a dramatic increase in speed for the simulation of large target systems.
Simics Accelerator is the only commercial solution capable of running virtual systems comprised scores of boards and hundreds of target processors - at a speed that is fast enough to satisfy the needs of the average systems engineer, software developer, or systems tester.
Multithreaded Simulation
Simics Accelerator makes use of multiple host processor cores to accelerate the simulation of large target systems. It does this by running parts of the simulated system in parallel, without impacting the determinism, synchronous system stop, and well-defined semantics provided by regular Simics simulations. Typically, the unit of parallelism are individual boards or networked machines, which are worthwhile to simulate in parallel since
Simics Accelerator Fully Leverages Multicore Platforms
The use of parallel cores can be controlled by a user to allow multiple simulations to share a large server.
Distributed Simulation
Simics Accelerator can distribute the simulation across multiple network-connected hosts, to further increase the simulation power available for truly large simulations. Some Simics users have deployed hundreds of virtual platforms using Simics Accelerator.
Simics Accelerator Uses Multiple Hosts to Speed Simulation
Page Sharing
Virtutech's Page Sharing technology, included in Simics Accelerator improves simulation performance and simulation-host memory utilization by allowing target memory and target disk pages containing identical information, to be stored only once and then shared with each of the relevant components within the simulation.
Page sharing technology is especially effective in eliminating duplicate memory pages and reducing the model's memory footprint in simulations of multicore/multinode systems where multiple co-processors (or accelerators) run identical software loads. Such an architecture is quite common in many of today's multicore network-equipment designs.
Summary
- Utilizes host computer's multi-processing capabilities to improve simulation speed
- Distribute simulations across multiple host CPU cores
- Distribute simulations across independent, network connected servers
- Host independence: models run regardless of host configuration
- Large target memory support
- Large gains in simulation efficiency for systems comprised of multiple identical platforms
- Simulate large and complex systems - from 10's to 100's of individual boards or computer systems
- Share models, checkpoint files, and projects with any Simics user, regardless of their Simics host configuration
- Fast simulation for real-world software and system development, debug, and test
- Complete control, visibility and debug of large multi-board systems