MemorySim: An RTL-level, timing accurate simulator model for the Chisel ecosystem
Abstract
The rapid growth of AI applications has driven increased demand for specialized AI hardware, highlighting critical opportunities within the memory subsystem, which often serves as a performance bottleneck in high-demand workloads such as large language models (LLMs). Existing high-level memory simulators, such as DRAMSim2 and DRAMSim3, offer timing simulations but frequently compromise on correctness or integration at the register-transfer level (RTL). We present MemorySim, an RTL-level memory simulator designed to deliver both accurate timing and functional correctness. MemorySim integrates seamlessly with existing Chisel and Verilog simulations and is fully compatible with the Chisel/Chipyard ecosystem. This enables users to obtain precise performance and power estimates, supporting downstream evaluation through simulation platforms such as FireSim.