About CoreMark^®

CPU Core Benchmarking

Although it doesn’t reflect how you would use a processor in a real application, sometimes it’s important to isolate the CPU’s core from the other elements of the processor and focus on one key element. For example, you might want to have the ability to ignore memory and I/O effects and focus primarily on the pipeline operation. This is CoreMark’s domain. CoreMark is capable of testing a processor’s basic pipeline structure, as well as the ability to test basic read/write operations, integer operations, and control operations.

Embedded Processor Benchmarking

As any embedded system designer knows, an embedded processor is much more than a CPU core. While CoreMark provides a simple starting point, to thoroughly comprehend the capability of a embedded processor and an associated compiler, EEMBC recommends that you utilize the application-oriented EEMBC suites including AutoBench, DENBench, Networking, OABench, and TeleBench. These long-established benchmark suites are the industry standard when it comes to testing the processor, its memory subsystem, and the compiler. In addition, now that multicore technology has become prevalent in the industry, EEMBC offers MultiBench, a comprehensive suite of benchmarks specifically designed to flush out the bottlenecks and highlight the scalability associated with multicore processors.

Embedded System Benchmarking

Today’s embedded processor platforms are more than just a CPU and memory subsystem. In fact, systems-on-chip (SoCs) can be comprised of a combination of one or more CPU cores, hardware accelerators, intelligent peripherals, and even large amounts of memory. Currently, EEMBC’s code-based application benchmarks provide a starting point for testing these complex devices. Furthermore, EEMBC is in the midst of developing a variety of scenario-based benchmark suites targeting applications such as networking/telecomm and mobile platforms. Contact EEMBC to get involved in this effort - help create the standard in embedded processor benchmarking.

Peripheral Performance and Interrupt Response

While CoreMark is useful for testing the core of a microcontroller, what about benchmarks for those peripherals and interrupt mechanisms? EEMBC is currently developing a comprehensive suite of scenario-based, hardware-driven tests that will exploit the common microcontroller peripherals and the CPU’s ability to service those peripherals and other system-level interrupts. Join EEMBC’s membership to participate in this development effort.

Power and Energy

Every processor vendor typically has its own power measurement methods, making it nearly impossible to make accurate comparisons among competing vendors. EnergyBench resolves this ambiguityby providing data on how much energy a processor consumes when running a real application workload and not just arbitrarily chosen test vectors. EEMBC has standardized on the use of NationalInstruments' LabVIEW graphical development environment and data acquisition hardware to implement EnergyBench.