Hotspot detection of SPEC CPU 2006 benchmarks with performance event counters

Abstract

Hotspot is the part of a program where most execution time is spent. Detecting the hotspot enables the optimization of the program. The performance event counters embedded in modern processors provide the hardware support for the hotspot detection. By sampling the instruc- tion addresses of the running program with performance event counters, hotspot of the program can be statistically detected. This technical re- port describes our tool to find the sections of the code that are detected as the hotspot of the program with performance event counters. SPEC CPU 2006 benchmarks are tested with our tool and the results show the hotspot sections and overhead of the hotspot detection tool.