High performance parallel logic simulations on a network of workstations

An approach for high performance parallel logic simulation on a local area network of workstation computers is discussed in this paper. The single, shared transmission medium often found in such networks places limitations on parallel execution, hence a reduction in the frequency of synchronization is pursued by combining a circuit partitioning methodology with a specific synchronization constraint. A consequence of the partitioning methodology is replication of objects between blocks of a partition. A partitioning procedure based on iterative improvement is described for reducing replication while preserving load balance. Two interprocessor synchronization techniques for parallel simulation are studied: conservative and optimistic synchronization. Experiments conducted on three large sequential circuits indicate that reasonable speedup is achievable for well-balanced partitions, and that optimistic synchronization provides a modest improvement in performance over conservative synchronization.