MIPS Pipeline Simulator

Making use of a reduced set of instructions from the MIPS architecture, this program can interpret and execute assembly code as well as find possible data hazards according to the standard 5-stage MIPS pipeline.

This project was made as a task for the UIB.

Features

• Assembly code parsing using Flex and Bison.
• Memory allocation using simulator directives.
• Code execution with branching supported.
• Data hazard detection and correction.
• Generation of pipeline diagram.
• Optionally add NOP instructions to code (to fix data hazards).
• Forwarding support.
• Partial branch prediction support.

Supported instructions

Here is a list of the supported instructions:

• No operation (NOP, NOOP)
• R-Type
  • ADD, ADDI, ADDU, ADDIU
  • AND, ANDI
  • OR, ORI
  • NOR, NORI
  • XOR, XORI
  • SUB, SUBU
• Memory
  • Load (LB, LH, LW)
  • Store (SB, SH, SW)
• Branches
  • Equal (BEQ)
  • Not equal (BNE)
  • ≥ 0 (BGEZ)
  • > 0 (BGTZ)
  • ≤ 0 (BLEZ)
  • < 0 (BLTZ)
• Unconditional Jump (J)

Building

Linux

In order to build for Linux, make you sure have Flex, Bison, CMake, Make and a C++ compiler of your choice installed in your system. These tools tend to come in a bundle when installing developer tools in most distributions.

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make

You may choose a different name for the build directory. The name is irrelevant.

Windows

Building for Windows may be more challenging because of how this project uses Flex and Bison. You may attempt to build for Windows using a Linux machine:

• Install mingw-w64 cross-compiler tools.
• Find where the header files are installed in. For example: /usr/x86_64-w64-mingw32/include/
• Create a symlink in that folder pointing towards /usr/include/FlexLexer.h
• Execute cmake with the following arguments:
  cmake .. -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=/bin/x86_64-w64-mingw32-g++ -DCMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS="-static -static-libgcc -static-libstdc++"

Note that depending on the distribution, the path to the mingw compiler may be different.