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Copyright © 2000 Hewlett-Packard Co. Overview 2-1
Ski IA-64 Simulator Reference Manual 1.0L
2 Overview
2.1 Introduction
The Ski simulator is a software package designed to functionally simulate the IA-64 processor architecture at the instruc-
tion level. Ski offers an informative, screen-oriented machine state display and a friendly, powerful command interface.
Programs may be loaded from disk in executable format; they may be run from start to finish, single-stepped, and break-
pointed. Translation lookaside buffers may be simulated. Certain Linux and MS-DOS operating system functions (system
calls) are provided for simulation of application programs. These capabilities are complemented by screen-oriented sym-
bolic debugging to provide a view into the simulated IA-64 processor.
2.1.1 Ski’s Strengths
Ski is particularly well-suited for:
• IA-64 application development:
Ski can simulate IA-64 programs in a Linux environment and IA-32 programs in an MS-DOS environment. Ski
provides a user interface that looks very much like a typical debugger– but the processor you are debugging on is
virtual, simulated by Ski. Ski has successfully executed the SPEC-92 and SPEC-95 benchmark suites.
• IA-64 compiler tuning:
Ski provides performance statistics that can help you tune IA-64 compiler code generators. Ski can help you improve
your compiler’s use of IA-64 architectural enhancements for parallelism.
• IA-64 operating system and firmware development:
Ski can simulate a “raw” IA-64 processor, with no operating system provided. Because of this, you can use Ski to
simulate an IA-64 operating system running IA-64 and IA-32 programs. For example, Ski has been used successfully
to develop the IA-64 version of the Linux kernel.
• IA-64 processor functional hardware verification:
Ski is a true implementation of the IA-64 architecture. You can compare the behavior of code simulated with Ski to
the same code running on other IA-64 implementations. This helps you verify the correctness of those
implementations.
2.1.2 Ski’s Scope
Many different kinds of simulators can be created: device simulators that function at the semiconductor quantum physics
level, circuit simulators that model the behavior of small numbers of transistors and other circuit elements, gate simulators
that model digital circuits at the boolean logic level, and so on. Ski is an instruction simulator, which makes it very fast.
Ski doesn’t model any particular physical IA-64 implementation. Instead, it models an architecturally-compliant IA-64
processor with extensive compute resources.
2.2 What You Need to Know to Use This Manual
This manual describes the user interface of Ski in detail. In reading this manual, you will learn how to use Ski to simulate
your IA-64 and IA-32 programs. To understand this manual, you should already be familiar with the IA-64 architecture.
IA-64 abbreviations such as ip, psr, and eax are used without explanation.
2.3 Defects and Defect Reporting
Ski is provided "as is", without any guarantees or warranties. However, a mailing list has been created for reporting Ski
defects and for general Ski discussions. See the release notes for details on the mailing list address and how to subscribe.