Top-Down Characterization Approximation based on performance counters architecture for AMD processors

Abstract Due to the increasing complexity of the processors, developers often seek for tools that would simplify the process of finding bottlenecks while executing applications. Although more and more data may be collected from processors, usually much detailed knowledge about the internals of a given architecture is required to understand them. This paper introduces a Top-Down Characterization Approximation for the analysis of applications performance executed on AMD processors and is an extension of a Top-Down Method initially developed by Intel. Since not all required performance counters are available on AMD processors to calculate the exact values of metrics, this method was named as an approximation. It allows one to get a deeper understanding of different stages of program execution, compare different architectures and identify bottlenecks in out-of-order processors. It hides from the user the complexity of microarchitecture details and at the same time exposes the main contributors of inefficient program execution. This method aims at defining a few main metrics on top of performance counters to easily locate the main efficiency issues. At this time this method was applied to Intel processors only. The main reason behind it was the fact that it uses designated performance counters that are unique among different processors and its portability is not straightforward. Positive feedback from users encouraged the authors to develop a similar technique for AMD processors.