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Cnuas Calibrated Virtual-time Model, Datasheet

Item Value
Part cnuas-timing
Type Deterministic timing and performance model
Package cnuas-timing, version 0.1.0
Version 5c3d075-dirty
Repo PacketFive/cnuas

1. Overview

cnuas-timing composes analytic timing costs for Cnuas processors, PCIe, network interfaces, switches, accelerators, accelerator links, management buses and facility control loops. It uses integer-picosecond event scheduling, models queues and parallel lanes, and can fit component predictions to a named physical target.

The supplied profile is uncalibrated. It produces deterministic virtual-time estimates, not physical performance claims.

Key features

  • QEMU icount mapping for deterministic guest instruction time.
  • Instructions, cycles, bytes, packets and operations in one workload type.
  • Fixed latency, resource rates, serial or overlapping costs, and parallel lanes per component.
  • Stable event ordering, queue time, service time and end-to-end traces.
  • Affine physical-target calibration with retained target identity.
  • Held-out MAE, RMSE, MAPE and maximum absolute error.
  • Strict JSON profiles and pipelines.
  • Machine-readable command output.

2. Module map

Module Responsibility
model.py Work, component profiles, pipeline stages, event scheduler and result metrics
calibration.py Observation schema, least-squares fitting and held-out errors
profiles.py Strict deterministic JSON profile serialization
qemu.py Instruction-count shift mapping and deterministic TCG arguments
cli.py Prediction, pipeline simulation, fitting, validation and QEMU commands

3. Timing resources

Resource Profile rate Service-time term
Guest instructions MIPS instructions divided by instruction rate
Component cycles MHz cycles divided by clock
Transfer volume Gbit/s eight times bytes divided by bandwidth
Packet work Mpacket/s packets divided by packet rate
Compute work TOPS operations divided by operation rate

Overlapping components use the largest active resource term. Serial components sum them. Fixed latency is added before a positive scale and finite offset from calibration are applied.

4. Scheduling

Property Specification
Time base Integer picoseconds
Resource sharing Per-component lane availability
Lane selection Earliest available lane, then lowest lane number
Queueing Start time minus stage arrival time
Pipeline Ordered component stages per job
Arrivals Simultaneous or fixed interval
Output Mean and nearest-rank p95 latency, throughput, optional event trace
Replay Equal profile, pipeline and arrivals produce an equal trace

5. Calibration

Item Specification
First model physical = max(0, scale * analytic + offset)
Fit Ordinary least squares for two or more distinct predictions
Single point Scale through the origin, preliminary use only
Required identity Component and named physical target
Rejected fit Non-positive scale
Held-out metrics MAE, RMSE, MAPE, maximum absolute error

A physical result must additionally record hardware and firmware revisions, clock and link configuration, software versions, workload shape, queue and flow counts, measurement method, and fitting versus held-out partitions.

6. Reference component coverage

Profile key Domain
guest-cpu-icount-shift0 QEMU guest processor
pcie-gen5-x16 Host-to-device transport
cnuasnic RDMA adapter packet and byte work
cnuasswitch Fabric-hop packet and byte work
cnuasgpu-compute, cnuasgpu-memory Accelerator arithmetic and memory
cnuaslink Accelerator peer fabric
bmc-rs485 ORV3 Modbus RTU segment
facility-control Telemetry and site power control cadence

7. Command reference

Command Purpose
predict Compute service time for one component and work item
simulate Run repeated jobs through a JSON pipeline
calibrate Fit a target correction from training observations
validate Report errors on held-out observations
qemu-args Print deterministic TCG and icount arguments

8. Validation

Suite Cases Result
Resource arithmetic, profile validation, scheduling and replay 26 Pass
Calibration and held-out errors 9 Pass
Profile I/O, QEMU mapping and CLI 11 Pass
Total 46 Pass

These cases validate software behaviour. Physical prediction accuracy remains unmeasured until target datasets are collected.

9. Integration

Item Value
Source timing/src/cnuas_timing/
Reference profile timing/profiles/cnuas-analytic-v0.json
Example pipeline timing/examples/rdma-gpu-pipeline.json
Python 3.10 or newer
Runtime dependencies None
Test dependency pytest 8 or newer
Licence Apache License 2.0

Detailed architecture and the calibration protocol are in the timing model design.

10. Documentation and publication

Resource Scope
Documentation overview Entry point and implementation state
Concepts and evidence Need, reasoning, evidence classes and design choices
Quick start Installation and first experiment
Architecture and algorithm Equations, event scheduler and calibration protocol
Profiles and pipelines JSON schema, work dimensions, modes and lanes
Calibration guide Target identity, fitting and held-out validation
CLI and Python reference Commands, outputs, API and error behaviour
Worked examples NIC, GPU, RS-485, queueing and experiment bundles
Limits and interpretation Claim boundary and planned work
Dedicated paper publications/cnuas-timing/Cnuas-Timing.pdf in the academic-research repository

11. Revision history

Revision Date Change
B 2026-08-22 Added the dedicated documentation section, full user workflow, command and API reference, worked examples, and expanded paper
A 2026-08-21 Initial deterministic scheduler, analytic profile, QEMU mapping, calibration, held-out errors and CLI