CACTI

Overview

A new improved version of CACTI (CACTI 3.2) has recently been released. CACTI (CACTI 3.2) is a version of CACTI 3.0 with a number of small bug fixes. CACTI 3.2 can be obtained by downloading the gzip'ed tar file, gunzip'ing it (gunzip cacti3.2.tar.gz), extracting the tar'ed files (tar -xvf cacti3.2.tar) and running make.

CACTI 3.0 is an integrated cache access time, cycle time, area, aspect ratio and 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 1.0 was originally developed by Steve Wilton and Norm Jouppi. CACTI 2.0 was developed by Glenn Reinman and Norm Jouppi. CACTI 3.0 was developed by Premkishore Shivakumar and Norm Jouppi.

CACTI 3.0 includes modeling support for the area and aspect ratio of caches, caches with independently addressed banks, reduced sense-amp power dissipation and other improvements to CACTI 2.0. A paper describing the CACTI 3.0 improvements to CACTI 2.0 is available in both postscript and pdf formats. CACTI 3.0 can be obtained by downloading the gzip'ed tar file, gunzip'ing it and extracting the tar'ed files.

CACTI 2.0 added modeling support for fully-associative caches, a power model, technology scaling, multiported caches and improved tag comparison circuits, as well as other improvements to CACTI 1.0. A paper describing the CACTI 2.0 enhancements to CACTI 1.0 is available in both postscript and pdf formats. CACTI 2.0 continues to be made available for use in regression studies and verification of previous work using CACTI 2.0. CACTI 2.0 can be obtained by downloading the gzip'ed tar file, gunzip'ing it and extracting the tar'ed files.

A detailed description of the original CACTI 1.0 model is given in the CACTI technical report. The original CACTI model is still freely available via anonymous FTP from ftp.digital.com. Send email to if you would like to be added to the CACTI User's Society (CACTIUS) to learn about future enhancements via email.