

1000-core Processor Simulator, Compiler, Libraries, and Applications - sparky
http://rigelproject.github.com

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sparky
Hi all,

We've just opened up a large fraction of the tools we've developed as part of
the Rigel project[1] at UIUC. The goal of the project is to investigate
several aspects of efficient many-core processors, including
microarchitecture, architecture, compiler optimization, and programming
models. To this end, we've built an execution-driven simulator, LLVM-based
cross-compiler toolchain, libraries, and parallel applications all targeting a
common baseline architecture, Rigel.

With these tools, you should be able to simulate cross-compiled parallel
programs running on 1024 cores by the end of the quick start guide. We are
working hard to release the rest of what we have internally, including more
benchmarks and an RTL model of the core.

When we started the project in 2007, there really wasn't much tooling
available to do the kind of cross-cutting studies we wanted to do. While many
existing projects have improved since then, and many new interesting tools
have come about, we've found it very useful to have an _integrated_ set of
tools targeting an ISA we define. It has allowed us to easily evaluate, for
example, the effect of instruction set extensions on hardware efficiency,
performance, compiler optimizations, and the application programming
experience.

I'll stick around and answer any questions folks might have; we're excited to
work with people to improve these tools, and are actively looking for users
and contributors.

[1] <https://rigel.crhc.illinois.edu/>

