F3CAS: Rethinking FPGA-Accelerated Computer Architecture Simulation for Data Storage Exploration – F3CAS

Modern high-performance mobile computing architectures spend more than 60% of the energy on data storage and movement. However, fundamental limitations in existing evaluation tools hinder the road to innovation in memory systems. Accordingly, this project proposes a new paradigm to build user-Friendly, Fast and Faithful Computer-system Architecture Simulations (F3CAS) tailored to the exploration of new memory architectures. F3CAS uniquely combines FPGA-acceleration with tightly coupled domain-specific soft-processors to encapsulate the simulator in a software-like abstraction. The F3CAS simulation will be demonstrated in the evaluation of emerging Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) technologies, such as the Spin-Transfer Torque (STT) RAM.