KR20060126149A - Apparatus for sensing bus traffic and method for sensing a amount of bus traffic - Google Patents

Abstract

An apparatus for sensing bus traffic and a method for sensing the amount of bus traffic are provided to enable a bus traffic counter to accumulate bus access frequency which a bus traffic monitor senses, thereby improving ASIC(Application Specific Integrated Circuit) performance and developing an optimized ASIC by exactly sensing the amount of run time bus traffic related to an ASIC. A method for sensing the amount of bus traffic comprises the following steps of: increasing the count of access frequency if there is access to a bus(S510,S520); determining whether the number of count is overflowed, and returning to the above step if the value of count is not overflowed according to determination result, and executing a following step if the value of count is overflowed(S530); transmitting a signal for interrupting bus access frequency counting to the other bus traffic counter and obtaining a count value before overflow of a bus traffic counter(S540,S550).

Description

{Apparatus for sensing bus traffic and method for sensing a amount of bus traffic}

1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the structure of a bus traffic detection apparatus according to the present invention

2 is a flow chart including one embodiment of a bus traffic detection method in accordance with the present invention

3 is a conceptual diagram showing a method of improving the performance of the chip according to the bus traffic detection apparatus and the detection method according to the present invention

<Description of the symbols for the main parts of the drawings>

100, 101, 102: bus traffic monitor

200, 201, 202: Bus Traffic Counters

300: multiplexer 400: memory device

The present invention relates to a bus traffic detection device and a detection method, and more particularly, a bus traffic detection device and a detection method capable of detecting a traffic amount of a bus by examining a bus traffic amount as a count of the number of accesses to a bus. It is about.

With the trend toward smaller and lighter electronic products, the field of application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) is rapidly expanding. As the functions of ASICs become more and more diverse, the structure of ASICs becomes more complex, and as a result, the control of ASICs becomes more sophisticated. In particular, as the ASIC evolved into a system on chip (SoC) incorporating a general-purpose CPU, various problems with the ASIC occurred.

Originally, ASICs were developed to be optimized for specific applications. Therefore, how to utilize all the resources inside the ASIC was also specialized according to the purpose of the ASIC. In this process, the know-how of the developers with much research experience on ASIC design was required. Each development body of the ASIC studied the design and the like according to the specific application of the ASIC, and the results of the research were also accumulated exclusively and closed between each development body.

However, the technology for ASICs has been rapidly developed and generalized to use general purpose CPUs such as SoCs. Thus, the method of increasing the efficiency of ASIC's internal resources is limited by relying on some developer's know-how. In addition, there is a problem in that the internal resources of the ASIC cannot be efficiently utilized in a situation where the complex bus traffic generated by the CPU and the unique bus traffic generated by the specific ASIC are mixed.

The present invention is to solve the above problems, an object of the present invention is to provide a bus traffic that can specifically detect the amount of run-time bus traffic associated with the ASIC to efficiently and systematically utilize the internal resources of the ASIC It provides a traffic detection device and a bus traffic detection method.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is a method for detecting the amount of bus traffic (bus traffic) using a bus traffic counter that can measure the number of access to the bus, (a) when there is access to the bus Increasing the count of access times; (b) determining whether the count number has overflowed, returning to step (a) if the count result does not overflow, and performing step (c) if it overflows; And (c) transmitting a count accumulation process stop signal of the number of bus accesses to another bus traffic counter and obtaining a count value before overflowing.

When the bus traffic counter receives a count accumulation stop signal generated by the overflow of another bus traffic counter during the step (a) or (b), The method may further include storing the count number increased in step a). This is a bus traffic amount detection method that can be used when the bus traffic amount is measured using a plurality of bus traffic counters.

In addition, the present invention provides a bus traffic monitor for detecting the amount of bus traffic in the number of times to access the bus; A bus traffic counter that accumulates the number of bus accesses detected by the bus traffic monitor; And a memory device for storing the number of bus accesses measured by the bus traffic counter.

The bus traffic counter may output a count accumulation stop signal when the accumulated bus access count has overflowed. This is to detect the amount of bus traffic occurring on each bus until the accumulated counter count of any one bus traffic counter overflows when there are multiple bus traffic counters. Therefore, when the bus traffic counter overflows and outputs a count accumulation stop signal, the overflowed bus traffic counter stores the count value before the overflow in the memory device. In addition, the bus traffic counter, which receives a count accumulation stop signal because another bus traffic counter overflows, may store a count value in the memory device when the signal is input. The counter may store the count value directly in the memory device, or the central processing unit may receive the count values of all the bus traffic counters in the memory device by running software.

Accordingly, the bus traffic sensing device may further include a multiplexer which separates the storage signals and stores them in the memory device when the plurality of bus traffic counter devices store the number of bus accesses in the memory device.

Hereinafter, with reference to the accompanying drawings, preferred embodiments of the present invention that can specifically realize the above object will be described.

Referring to FIG. 1, an embodiment of a bus traffic detection apparatus according to the present invention will be described. One embodiment of a bus traffic detection apparatus according to the present invention includes a plurality of bus traffic monitors 100, 101, 102, a plurality of bus traffic counters 200, 201, 202, a multiplexer 300, and a memory device 400. In the present embodiment, for convenience of description, a case of including three bus traffic monitors and corresponding bus traffic counters will be described.

Each of the bus traffic monitors 100, 101 and 102 monitors whether predetermined bus traffic occurs among all accesses to the bus. If the bus traffic occurs, the traffic generation detection signal is applied to each bus traffic counter 200, 201, 202 connected to each bus traffic monitor. In this specification, the term "access to a bus" refers to all traffic generated through a bus, and includes a concept of all access to a resource or traffic generated by a bus master.

For example, in order to monitor access to resource A, the bus traffic monitor 101 monitors access to resource A among accesses to a bus and detects the number of events when a corresponding event occurs. Output the detection signal. The bus traffic counter 201 receiving the detection signal counts and accumulates the number of times of access to the input detection signal.

When any one of the bus traffic counters 200, 201 and 202 has overflowed, the counter 201 outputs a signal to other bus traffic counters 200 and 202 indicating that an overflow has occurred. do. The signal becomes a stop signal for accumulation process to each counter. Accordingly, the bus traffic counters 200 and 202 receiving the signal store the count value at the time of input in the memory device 400. The overflowed bus traffic counter 201 stores the count value before the overflow in the memory device 400.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, when the count value accumulated in each bus traffic counter 200, 201, or 202 is stored in the memory device 400, the multiplexer 300 separates the storage signal and stores the stored signal in the memory device 400. It is preferable to further include).

 The function of the bus traffic monitors 100, 101 and 102 may be replaced by an arbiter. When the data to be detected is the number of times a specific bus master generates traffic, the arbiter may directly connect a signal for giving access to a specific bus master to a counter.

Referring to Figure 2 describes an embodiment of a bus traffic detection method according to the present invention. It monitors whether there is an access to the bus (S500), and determines whether there is an access related to the bus (S510). In addition, if there is a bus-related access, the count for the number of accesses of the corresponding bus is increased (S520). If the accumulated number of bus counts is overflowed, a signal for overflow is transmitted to another bus traffic counter (S530). The counter for counting the number of times of access of the bus stores the previous count value of the overflowed count value (S550). After the storing process is completed, the value accumulated in the counter is reset (S560), and the counter is used to examine the subsequent bus traffic. If a signal indicating that the bus traffic counter for detecting the traffic volume of the corresponding bus and another bus has overflowed is received, the counter value at the time of reception is stored (S570).

Referring to Figure 3, the use of the bus traffic detection apparatus and bus traffic detection method according to the present invention will be described. Bus traffic data related to chip 1 are simulated using the bus counter algorithm. The algorithm that solves the problem of bus traffic on the experimental results is applied to Chip 2. Then, bus traffic data related to chip 2 is simulated using the bus counter algorithm. This performance may be repeated to improve chip performance by solving a chip problem related to bus traffic. The example of FIG. 3 is an example showing that when the central processing unit is used to simulate the algorithm using software for developing a specific algorithm, a bus related problem for performing the algorithm can be improved. In addition, when the number of bus accesses is detected using an arbiter, the arbiter may change bus access priority for each bus master to improve the performance of the ASIC.

The effects of the apparatus for detecting bus traffic and the method for detecting bus traffic according to the present invention described above are as follows.

According to the bus traffic detection apparatus and the bus traffic detection method according to the present invention, it is possible to specifically detect the amount of run-time bus traffic related to the ASIC, thereby improving the performance of the ASIC and developing an optimized ASIC.

Claims (11)

In the method for detecting the amount of bus traffic (bus traffic) using a bus traffic counter that can measure the number of times of access to the bus, (a) incrementing the count of access times when there is access to the bus; (b) determining whether the count number has overflowed, returning to step (a) if the count result does not overflow, and performing step (c) if it overflows; And (c) transmitting a count accumulation process stop signal of the number of bus accesses to another bus traffic counter and obtaining a count value before overflowing; The method of claim 1, Storing the increased count in step (a) when the bus traffic counter receives a count accumulation stop signal generated by another bus traffic counter overflowing in step (a). How to detect bus traffic. The method of claim 1, Storing the increased count in step (a) when the bus traffic counter receives a count accumulation stop signal generated by the overflow of another bus traffic counter in step (b). How to detect bus traffic. A bus traffic monitor for detecting the amount of bus traffic by the number of times the bus is accessed; A bus traffic counter that accumulates the number of bus accesses detected by the bus traffic monitor; And And a memory device for storing the number of bus accesses measured by the bus traffic counter. The method of claim 4, wherein And the bus traffic counter outputs a count accumulation stop signal when the accumulated bus access count has overflowed. The method of claim 5, When the bus traffic counter outputs a count accumulation stop signal, the count value before overflow is stored in the memory device, and when the count accumulation stop signal is received, the count value is stored in the memory device when the signal is input. Bus traffic detection device. The method of claim 6, The bus traffic sensing device may further include a multiplexer configured to separate and store the storage signal in the memory device when a plurality of bus traffic counter devices store the number of bus accesses in the memory device. . An arbiter located between a bus and a bus access master and sensing the amount of bus traffic by the number of times of access to the bus; A bus traffic counter that accumulates the number of bus accesses detected by the arbiter; and And a memory device for storing the number of bus accesses measured by the bus traffic counter. The method of claim 8, And the bus traffic counter outputs a count accumulation stop signal when the accumulated bus access count has overflowed. The method of claim 9, When the bus traffic counter outputs a count accumulation stop signal, the count value before overflow is stored in the memory device, and when the count accumulation stop signal is received, the count value is stored in the memory device when the signal is input. Bus traffic detector. The method of claim 10, The bus traffic detection apparatus may further include a multiplexer configured to separate and store the storage signal in the memory device when a plurality of bus traffic counter devices store the number of bus accesses in the memory device. Device.

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