Constant L1i-Cache Usage of Payloads

[marenz2569]

Currently we create the payloads by setting a number of lines and the proportions of the instructions. Given a map of instruction name to proportion we create a sequence containing the number proportion times the particular instruction. The total length of the sequence is the sum of all proportions. This sequence will be repeated floor(line count / sequence size), resulting in a non constant count of instructions and therefore different sizes of L1i-Cache usage.

Please note the different power consumption based on changing sequence size in FIRESTARTER 2: Dynamic Code Generation for Processor Stress Tests Fig. 8.

DoD

• Evaluate how the line count should be set i.e., based on constant L1i-Cache usage or a specific number of instructions.
• Change the optimization to use either a constant L1i-Cache usage or a specific number of instructions if this is sufficient.