The Championship Simulator: Architectural Simulation for Education and Competition

Abstract: Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the microarchitectural complexity of processors. This increase in complexity presents a twofold challenge for the field of computer architecture. First, no individual architect can fully comprehend the complexity of the entire microarchitecture of the core. This leads to increasingly specialized architects, who treat parts of the core outside their particular expertise as black boxes. Second, with increasing complexity, the field becomes decreasingly accessible to new students of the field. When learning core microarchitecture, new students must first learn the big picture of how the system works in order to understand how the pieces all fit together. The tools used to study microarchitecture experience a similar struggle. As with the microarchitectures they simulate, an increase in complexity reduces accessibility to new users. In this work, we present ChampSim. ChampSim uses a modular design and configurable structure to achieve a low barrier to entry into the field of microarchitecural simulation. ChampSim has shown itself to be useful in multiple areas of research, competition, and education. In this way, we seek to promote access and inclusion despite the increasing complexity of the field of computer architecture.