
242 CHAPTER 9 MADL—An ADL Based on a Formal
synthesized instruction set simulator executes the operations following the state dia-
grams designed for cycle accurate simulation. So for each operation,it will undergo
the normal stages of fetching, decoding, evaluation, and result write back. In con-
trast,the hand-coded simulator does not have to follow these stages and can thereby
benefit from some processor specific optimizations. For example,in the StrongARM
case, the hand-coded simulator evaluates the predicate operand of an instr uction
prior to fully decoding it. If the predicate operand is false, the instruction will be
skipped and its decoding/evaluation ...