Tools and Algorithms for SoC Communication Traces

Abstract

In this paper we study seven well-known trace analysis techniques both from the hardware and software domain, and discuss their performance on communication centric system-on-chip (SoC) traces. SoC traces are usually huge in size and concurrent in nature, therefore mining SoC traces poses additional challenges. We provide a hands on discussion of the selected tools/algorithms in terms of the input, output and analysis method they employ. Hardware traces also varies in nature when observed in different level, this work can help developers/academicians to pick up the right techniques for their works. We take advantage of a synthetic trace generator to find the interestingness of the mined outcomes for each tool as well as we work with a realistic GEM5 setup to find the performance of these tools on more realistic SoC traces. Comprehensive analysis of the tools performance and a benchmark trace dataset are also presented.