CACTI 6.0

An integrated cache access time, cycle time, area, leakage, and dynamic power model for uniform and non-uniform cache architectures

Overview

CACTI is an integrated cache access time, cycle time, area, leakage, and dynamic power model. By integrating all these models together, users can have confidence that tradeoffs between time, power and area are all based on the same assumptions and, hence, are mutually consistent. CACTI is intended for use by computer architects to better understand the performance tradeoffs inherent in different cache sizes and organizations.

CACTI 6.0 improves upon prior versions of the tool by focusing on interconnect design for large caches. In addition to strengthening existing analytical models of the tool for dominant cache components, CACTI 6.0 introduces two major extensions: (i) the ability to model Non-Uniform Cache Access (NUCA), and (ii) the ability to model different types of wires (RC-based wires with different power, delay, and area characteristics, and differential low-swing buses).


Latest Update

A new release (CACTI 6.5) combines the enhancements made in CACTI 5.0 and CACTI 6.0. Please use this version for subsequent research.


Downloads

Watch the HP site for the final release of version 6.0.
This web-site will continue to serve as a mirror site.

Beta releases:
CACTI 6.0 Beta Download (updated March 2008) | CACTI 6.0 Technical Report | The more high-level MICRO'07 paper | Slides from the MICRO'07 talk | An earlier release (December 2007)


Installation

To install and run CACTI 6.0, simply download the above gzip'ed tar file, gunzip it (gunzip cacti6-beta.tar.gz), extract the tar'ed files (tar -xvf cacti6-beta.tar), run make, then run cacti. CACTI 6.0 does not require command-line parameters; input parameters are provided in a cache.cfg file. The estimation for UCA cache organizations will typically consume about 10 seconds, while the estimation for NUCA cache organizations will consume close to a minute. See the README file for more details. A FAQ will also soon be posted here.

Please contact Naveen Muralimanohar (naveen@cs, followed by dot utah dot edu) with any questions.