Output and Metrics
Output report formats and performance metric definitions
CIMFlow-Simulator produces performance reports after each simulation run in text or JSON format.
Output Model
After simulation completes, the simulator produces a performance report. The report format depends on the output mode selected at the command line.
Text mode is the default for both cimflow sim and the native cim-simulator binary. The text report contains the following sections:
| Section | Content |
|---|---|
| Run metadata | Config path, instruction path, simulation/data mode |
| Performance metrics | Latency, energy, power, TOPS, TOPS/W |
| Energy breakdown | Hierarchical energy table by module |
| Per-core detail | Optional per-core energy table (enabled with -l) |
cim-simulator config.json inst.json -o report.txtTo also produce a JSON report alongside the text output, add the -j flag:
cim-simulator config.json inst.json -o report.txt -j report.jsonField Name Convention
JSON field names use trailing underscores (e.g., latency_, total_energy_) to match the internal C++ member naming convention in the Reporter class.
Metric Definitions
The simulator reports the following performance metrics after each run.
| Metric | Definition |
|---|---|
| Latency | Simulated execution time in the model timeline |
| Total Energy | Static energy plus dynamic energy |
| Average Power | total_energy / latency |
| TOPS | op_count / latency scaled to tera-operations per second |
| TOPS/W | TOPS / average_power |
The op_count value comes from the metadata.op_count field in the instruction file. This field records the total number of high-level operations (e.g., multiply-accumulate) in the workload, as computed by the compiler.
TOPS and TOPS/W Require op_count
When metadata.op_count is absent or zero, the simulator cannot compute TOPS or TOPS/W. These fields are omitted from the report.
Static vs Dynamic Energy
Static energy depends on configured static power and final runtime. Dynamic energy is accumulated by activity events in compute, memory, and network modules.
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