An Elastic Architecture Adaptable to Various Application Scenarios

The quantity of computer applications is increasing dramatically as the computer industry prospers. Meanwhile, even for one application, it has different requirements of performance and power in different scenarios. Although various processors with different architectures emerge to fit for the various applications in different scenarios, it is impossible to design a dedicated processor to meet all the requirements. Furthermore, dealing with uncertain processors significantly aggravates the burden of programmers and system integrators to achieve specific performance/power. In this paper, we propose elastic architecture （EA） to provide a uniform computing platform with high elasticity, i.e., the ratio of worst-case to best-case performance/power/performance-power trade-off, which can meet different requirements for different applications. It is achieved by dynamically adjusting architecture parameters （instruction set, branch predictor, data path, memory hierarchy, concurrency, status~zcontrol, and so on） on demand. The elasticity of our prototype implementation of EA, as Sim-EA, ranges from 3.31 to 14.34, with 5.41 in arithmetic average, for SPEC CPU2000 benchmark suites, which provides great flexibility to fulfill the different performance and power requirements in different scenarios. Moreover, Sim-EA can reduce the EDP （energy-delay product） for 31.14% in arithmetic average compared with a baseline fixed architecture. Besides, some subsequent experiments indicate a negative correlation between application intervals＇ lengths and their elasticities.     

Prevention from Soft Errors via Architecture Elasticity

Due to the decreasing threshold voltages, shrinking feature size, as well as the exponential growth of on-chip transistors, modern processors are increasingly vulnerable to soft errors. However, traditional mechanisms of soft error mitigation take actions to deal with soft errors only after they have been detected. Instead of the passive responses, this paper proposes a novel mechanism which proactively prevents from the occurrence of soft errors via architecture elasticity. In the light of a predictive model, we adapt the processor architectures h01istically and dynamically. The predictive model provides the ability to quickly and accurately predict the simulation target across different program execution phases on any architecture configurations by leveraging an artificial neural network model. Experimental results on SPEC CPU 2000 benchmarks show that our method inherently reduces the soft error rate by 33.2% and improves the energy efficiency by 18.3% as compared with the static configuration processor.     

处理器验证激励在线筛选技术

如何生成高质量的验证激励是功能验证中的核心问题之一.随着功能验证的不断进行,验证激励的有效性也随之降低.为了提高验证激励的质量,提出一种在线筛选技术来处理验证激励.该技术采用单分类支持向量机来在线地构建分类器,以对新生成的验证激励是否冗余进行预测,如果是冗余的,则不进入仿真阶段进行仿真.在此基础上,进一步提出指令序列核函数来衡量不同指令序列的相似程度.实验结果表明,与约束随机生成技术相比,文中技术可以减少约83%的验证激励及79%的验证时间.     

在LOTUS NOTES中通过ODBC访问关系型数据库的方法

本文基于MicroSoft的开放数据库互连技术介绍了LotusNotes中激活ODBS的的基本方法并给出了一个将关系型数据库信息转换到NOTES数据库的实例。     

基于遗传算法的全芯片级覆盖率驱动随机验证技术

随机测试生成技术是当今大规模集成电路仿真验证流程中的重要支撑技术.覆盖率驱动的随机测试生成方法是目前该领域研究的热点.遗传算法具有部分优化问题的黑盒特性,不需要了解问题的太多先验知识,适合处理黑盒优化问题.因此,将遗传算法应用在覆盖率反馈驱动随机测试生成时,不需要复杂的领域先验知识,节约了大量的专家时间,提高了验证的自动化程度.分析了各种基于遗传算法的覆盖率驱动的随机测试生成方法,并在此基础上设计和实现了基于遗传算法的全芯片级覆盖率驱动随机验证平台.该平台被实际应用在龙芯处理器的验证中,实验结果表明,平台有效提高了验证效率.     

使用支持向量机的微处理器验证向量优化方法

为了解决微处理器仿真验证中随机验证向量质量不高的问题,提出了一种基于支持向量机(SVM)的验证向量优化方法。该方法将已仿真运行的验证向量及其覆盖率信息作为支持向量机的样本进行有监督学习,得到验证向量关于功能覆盖点的分类器。利用训练后的分类器对于新产生的验证向量进行预测,并丢弃预测中不能提高覆盖率的冗余验证向量。实验数据表明该方法能准确地过滤冗余验证向量,提高仿真运行的验证向量的质量。和完全随机的验证向量生成方法相比,该方法达到相同的功能覆盖率仅需要前者1/3的验证向量。     

机器人足球仿真比赛平台的改进

介绍了哈尔滨工业大学开发的机器人足球仿真比赛平台的基本结构、系统的工作原理及运动学动力学模型，同时介绍了该平台新增的自动裁判、比赛回放等功能．     

基于模型树的多核设计空间探索技术

处理器设计面临的重要挑战是如何在庞大的设计空间中高效地找到满足约束的设计结构,而预测模型方法是探索复杂设计空间的重要方法.为了提高预测模型的实用性,提出一种基于模型树的多核设计空间探索技术.首先对整个设计空间中部分设计结构进行采样模拟,然后通过模型树算法构建设计参数与处理器响应之间的预测模型,最后通过该模型预测出其他设计结构的响应以找到满足约束的最优设计.实验结果表明,与现有的基于支持向量机和人工神经网络的预测模型技术相比,针对性能预测,采用文中技术能够提高74.87%和38.87%的准确度;针对能耗预测,能够提高2.66%和16.82%的准确度.     

在LOTUS NOTES中通过ODBC访问关系型数据库的方法

本文基于MicroSotf的开放数据库五连技术,介绍了Lotus Notes中激活ODBS的基本方法并给出了一个将关系型数据库信息转换到NOTES数据库的实例.