Optimistic Synchronization of Mixed-Mode Simulators

Mixed-Mode simulation has been generating considerable interest in the simulation community and has continued to grow as an active research area. Traditional mixed-mode simulation involves the merging of digital and analog simulators in various ways. However, efficient methods for the synchronization between the two time domains remains elusive. This is due to the fact that the analog simulator uses dynamic time step control whereas the digital simulator uses the event driven paradigm. This paper proposes two new synchronization methods which are general enough to support several algorithms within the same simulation. The capabilities of the synchronization protocols are presented using a component-based continuous-time simulator integrated with an optimistic parallel discrete event simulator. The results of the preliminary performance evaluation leads us to believe that while both synchronization methods are functionally viable, one has superior performance.