TOWARDS MANY-CORE PROCESSOR SIMULATION ON CLOUD COMPUTING PLATFORMS

Abstract

Growth of interest and need for many-core systems have steadily increased over the recent years. Industry trends lead many-core systems to become increasingly larger and more complex. Because of these realities it is important to researchers, academia, and industry that the design of these many-core systems be straightforward and comprehensive. There is a need for a many-core simulator that can be simple to use and learn from for students, dynamic and capable of emulating large systems for researchers, and flexible with fast turnover for industry designers. At the same time, as many-core systems have been becoming popular and complex, and hence their design, the long standing field of Cloud Computing has become more prevalent and feasible to use. Such cloud computing platforms as Windows Azure allow for the easy access and use of resources that in the past were simply not available to ordinary users. Large tasks can be performed in SaaS Cloud Computing models and be accessible from a small, lightweight device using nothing more than a web browser. As a solution to the needs for designing future many-core systems, we present a Many-Core Simulator on Azure Cloud Computing Platform called M3C Simulator. This is targeted at teaching, research, and industry and as such needs to be easy to use, flexible, and powerful. The Could Computing service model meets all these needs. This thesis discusses overall design of the M3C Simulator and how it leverages Cloud Computing resources, the simple-to-use and understand Interface layout, and the software design including program flow and dynamic compilation.