Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences

When moving toward hardware/software codesign, software estimation provides important information in chosing hardware implementation (ASIC) or software implementation (software running on processor). This report analizes the pipeline stall and superscalar interlock phenomenon and their influence on software performance. Simple processor profile is proposed to count these two effects. Based on generic estimation model, our estimator can produce accurate estimation without large computation time and precious resource, such as compilers or simulators for each processor. The accuracy and flexibility make our approach suitable for design automation tools.