Performance checkpointing

A method comprising:

• for each of a plurality of snapshots taken during a performance test having a duration of system time:
• retrieving a snapshot of a guest running on real silicon, wherein the snapshot includes a virtual machine state and a memory image;
• flushing a cache of a virtual machine prior to loading the snapshot;
• subsequent to flushing the cache, loading the virtual machine state onto the virtual machine running on an emulator that is emulating a circuit design of a hardware component of a host system and loading the memory image onto a memory used by the emulator;
• and
• executing the virtual machine on the emulator for a shortened duration of system time that is less than the duration of system time to measure a performance of the circuit design for the snapshot;
• and
• extrapolating measured performances for the plurality of snapshots to determine the performance of the circuit design for the performance test.

An emulator system emulating a hardware component design, the emulator system comprising:

• a hardware data store configured to store a set of snapshots of a virtual machine of a host system, the snapshots having been taken at a periodic time interval during execution of a performance test having a duration of system time on the host system, and each snapshot including a virtual machine state and a memory image;
• and
• a hypervisor running on emulated hardware and configured to perform, for each snapshot in the set of snapshots, operations including:
• retrieving the snapshot from the hardware data store;
• flushing a cache of a virtual machine running on the emulator system;
• subsequent to flushing the cache, loading the virtual machine state onto the virtual machine running on the emulator system and loading the memory image onto a memory used by the emulator system;
• and
• executing the virtual machine running on the emulator system for a shortened duration of system time that is shorter than the duration of system time to measure a performance of the hardware component design for the snapshot,
• wherein a performance of the hardware component design for the performance test is determined by extrapolating measured performances for the set of snapshots.