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Section: New Software and Platforms
Barra
Modelisation of a GPU architecture
Keywords: Simulator - GPU - Computer architecture
Scientific Description
Research on throughput-oriented architectures demands accurate and representative models of GPU architectures in order to be able to evaluate new architectural ideas, explore design spaces and characterize applications. The Barra project is a simulator of the NVIDIA Tesla GPU architecture.
Barra builds upon knowledge acquired through micro-benchmarking, in order to provide a baseline model representative of industry practice. The simulator provides detailed statistics to identify optimization opportunities and is fully customizable to experiment ideas of architectural modifications. Barra incorporates both a functional model and a cycle-level performance model.
Functional Description
Barra simulates CUDA programs at the assembly language level (Tesla ISA). Its ultimate goal is to provide a 100 % bit-accurate simulation, offering bug-for-bug compatibility with NVIDIA G80-based GPUs. It works directly with CUDA executables, neither source modification nor recompilation is required.
Barra is primarily intended as a tool for research in computer architecture, although it can also be used to debug, profile and optimize CUDA programs at the lowest level.