Approxilyzer

Approxilyzer is an open-source framework for instruction level approximation and resiliency software. Approxilyzer provides a systematic way to identify instructions that exhibit first-order approximation potential. It can also identify silent data corruption (SDC) causing instructions in the presence of single-bit errors. Approxilyzer employs static and dynamic analysis, in addition to heuristics, to reduce the run-time of finding Approximate instructions and SDC-causing instructions by 3-6x orders of magnitude.

Project overview can be viewed at: https://cs.illinois.edu/approxilyzer

Approxilyzer Setup Instructions

1. all dependencies for gem5 are required (see gem5 documentation) This includes the following:

• gcc 4.8 or greater
• python 2.7 or greater
• SCons
• SWIG 2.0.4 or greater
• protobuf 2.1 or greater
• M4

On Ubuntu, the following commands should cover all of the requirements:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install scons
sudo apt-get install python-dev
sudo apt-get install swig
sudo apt-get install libprotobuf-dev python-protobuf protobuf-compiler libgoogle-perftools-dev
sudo apt-get install m4

2. To build from the source code run the following:

cd gem5
scons build/X86/gem5.fast -jX
scons build/X86/gem5.opt -jX

Where X is the number of available CPU cores plus 1.

Downloading Disk Images

1. Download sample gem5 disk images here Create the following directory structure, or modify the paths in gem5/configs/common/SysPaths.py: /dist/m5/system/disks /dist/m5/system/binaries

How to use Approxilyzer

1. In progress