This patch changes the name of a bunch of packet flags and MSHR member
functions and variables to make the coherency protocol easier to
understand. In addition the patch adds and updates lots of
descriptions, explicitly spelling out assumptions.
The following name changes are made:
* the packet memInhibit flag is renamed to cacheResponding
* the packet sharedAsserted flag is renamed to hasSharers
* the packet NeedsExclusive attribute is renamed to NeedsWritable
* the packet isSupplyExclusive is renamed responderHadWritable
* the MSHR pendingDirty is renamed to pendingModified
The cache states, Modified, Owned, Exclusive, Shared are also called
out in the cache and MSHR code to make it easier to understand.
This patch fixes a long-standing isue with the port flow
control. Before this patch the retry mechanism was shared between all
different packet classes. As a result, a snoop response could get
stuck behind a request waiting for a retry, even if the send/recv
functions were split. This caused message-dependent deadlocks in
stress-test scenarios.
The patch splits the retry into one per packet (message) class. Thus,
sendTimingReq has a corresponding recvReqRetry, sendTimingResp has
recvRespRetry etc. Most of the changes to the code involve simply
clarifying what type of request a specific object was accepting.
The biggest change in functionality is in the cache downstream packet
queue, facing the memory. This queue was shared by requests and snoop
responses, and it is now split into two queues, each with their own
flow control, but the same physical MasterPort. These changes fixes
the previously seen deadlocks.
This patch removes the notion of a peer block size and instead sets
the cache line size on the system level.
Previously the size was set per cache, and communicated through the
interconnect. There were plenty checks to ensure that everyone had the
same size specified, and these checks are now removed. Another benefit
that is not yet harnessed is that the cache line size is now known at
construction time, rather than after the port binding. Hence, the
block size can be locally stored and does not have to be queried every
time it is used.
A follow-on patch updates the configuration scripts accordingly.
This patch adds a predecessor field to the SenderState base class to
make the process of linking them up more uniform, and enable a
traversal of the stack without knowing the specific type of the
subclasses.
There are a number of simplifications done as part of changing the
SenderState, particularly in the RubyTest.
This patch makes the address mapper less stringent about checking the
before and after ranges, i.e. the original and remapped ranges. The
checks were not really necessary, and there are situations when the
previous checks were too strict.
This patch makes the start and end address private in a move to
prevent direct manipulation and matching of ranges based on these
fields. This is done so that a transition to ranges with interleaving
support is possible.
As a result of hiding the start and end, a number of member functions
are needed to perform the comparisons and manipulations that
previously took place directly on the members. An accessor function is
provided for the start address, and a function is added to test if an
address is within a range. As a result of the latter the != and ==
operator is also removed in favour of the member function. A member
function that returns a string representation is also created to allow
debug printing.
In general, this patch does not add any functionality, but it does
take us closer to a situation where interleaving (and more cleverness)
can be added under the bonnet without exposing it to the user. More on
that in a later patch.
This patch adds an additional level of ports in the inheritance
hierarchy, separating out the protocol-specific and protocl-agnostic
parts. All the functionality related to the binding of ports is now
confined to use BaseMaster/BaseSlavePorts, and all the
protocol-specific parts stay in the Master/SlavePort. In the future it
will be possible to add other protocol-specific implementations.
The functions used in the binding of ports, i.e. getMaster/SlavePort
now use the base classes, and the index parameter is updated to use
the PortID typedef with the symbolic InvalidPortID as the default.
This patch transitions the bus to use the AddrRange operations instead
of directly accessing the start and end. The change facilitates the
move to a more elaborate AddrRange class that also supports address
striping in the bus by specifying interleaving bits in the ranges.
Two new functions are added to the AddrRange to determine if two
ranges intersect, and if one is a subset of another. The bus
propagation of address ranges is also tweaked such that an update is
only propagated if the bus received information from all the
downstream slave modules. This avoids the iteration and need for the
cycle-breaking scheme that was previously used.
