Multicore Automotive Processors Now Benchmark-able with EEMBC® MultiBench™

 

 

Targeting Automotive Multicore Systems, New Industry-Standard Tests Upgrade the Popular EEMBC AutoBench Benchmark Suite

EL DORADO HILLS, Calif. — August 15, 2016 — The Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC) today announced the release of AutoBench 2.0, an industry-developed benchmark suite comprised of Automotive workloads that integrate with the consortium’s tried-and-proven EEMBC® MultiBench™ tool. MultiBench allows processor and system designers to test and analyze the performance and scalability of multicore architectures and platforms. With the increasing adoption of multicore technology into automotive applications, the AutoBench 2.0 provides an important performance metric for system designers testing the efficacy of multicore processors.

AutoBench 2.0 upgrades and turbo-charges versions of the kernels contained in EEMBC’s widely-used AutoBench 1.1, including angle-to-time conversion, CAN remote-data request, matrix arithmetic, road-speed calculation, tooth-to-spark, and other key algorithms commonly employed in automotive systems. AutoBench 2.0 workloads can be individually parameterized to vary the amount of concurrency being implemented by the kernels. By applying incrementally-challenging workloads, AutoBench 2.0 tests scalability within the system.

“Beyond helping understand and evaluate the performance of specific processors and systems, AutoBench 2.0 assesses the impact of memory bottlenecks, efficiency of thread synchronization, and other related functions in automotive systems using multicore processors so designers can make informed decisions that optimize their products,” said Peter Torelli, EEMBC director of software engineering.

“Putting multiple execution cores into a single processor does not by itself guarantee greater multiples of processing power, and there is no prima facie reason to expect that a multicore processor will deliver a dramatic increase in a system’s capabilities, computing resources, or throughput,” said Paul Teich, principal analyst at Tirias Research. “This is why AutoBench 2.0 is so valuable. It shows when parallelization and scaling contribute to performance—and, at least as important, when and why they don’t.”

Like the original MultiBench, AutoBench 2.0 targets the evaluation of scalable symmetrical multicore processor (SMP) architectures with shared memory. To simplify porting and increase portability, the MultiBench framework was written for Linuxbased operating systems using GNUlike tool chains and was implemented with an abstraction layer and test harness to facilitate porting to different platforms. The abstraction layer provides a method to implement thread scheduling, signaling, and affinity. By default, the threading is implemented with a POSIX-compliant, pthread programming interface.

EEMBC’s AutoBench 2.0 is now available for corporate and academic licensing; all inquiries should go to Markus Levy. Contact the EEMBC Technology Center for porting services and analysis of AutoBench 2.0 results. Further information is available at www.eembc.org/autobench2/index.php.

EEMBC encourages vendors and manufacturers to join the consortium’s working groups to contribute their expertise and needs to the definition and development of its next-generation benchmark suites. To join, contact Markus Levy.

About EEMBC

EEMBC was formed in 1997 to develop performance benchmarks for the hardware and software used in embedded systems. EEMBC benchmarks help predict the performance and energy consumption of embedded processors and systems in a range of applications (e.g. autonomous driving, mobile imaging, Internet of Things, scale-out servers, and mobile devices) and disciplines (processor core functionality, floating-point, multicore, and energy consumption).

 

EEMBC members include Ambiq Micro, AMD, Analog Devices, Andes Technology, ARM, C-Sky Microsystems, Cavium, Codeplay Software, Cypress Semiconductor, Dell, Flextronics, Green Hills Software, Huawei Technologies, IAR Systems, Imagination Technologies-MIPS, Intel, Marvell Semiconductor, Microchip Technology, Nokia, Nordic Semiconductor, NVIDIA, NXP Semiconductors, Realtek Semiconductor, Renesas Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Silicon Labs, Somnium Technologies, Sony Interactive Entertainment, STMicroelectronics, Synopsys, Texas Instruments, and Wind River Systems.

 

MultiBench is a trademark and EEMBC is a registered trademark of the Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium.