This patch adds the notion of voltage domains, and groups clock
domains that operate under the same voltage (i.e. power supply) into
domains. Each clock domain is required to be associated with a voltage
domain, and the latter requires the voltage to be explicitly set.
A voltage domain is an independently controllable voltage supply being
provided to section of the design. Thus, if you wish to perform
dynamic voltage scaling on a CPU, its clock domain should be
associated with a separate voltage domain.
The current implementation of the voltage domain does not take into
consideration cases where there are derived voltage domains running at
ratio of native voltage domains, as with the case where there can be
on-chip buck/boost (charge pumps) voltage regulation logic.
The regression and configuration scripts are updated with a generic
voltage domain for the system, and one for the CPUs.
This patch adds the notion of source- and derived-clock domains to the
ClockedObjects. As such, all clock information is moved to the clock
domain, and the ClockedObjects are grouped into domains.
The clock domains are either source domains, with a specific clock
period, or derived domains that have a parent domain and a divider
(potentially chained). For piece of logic that runs at a derived clock
(a ratio of the clock its parent is running at) the necessary derived
clock domain is created from its corresponding parent clock
domain. For now, the derived clock domain only supports a divider,
thus ensuring a lower speed compared to its parent. Multiplier
functionality implies a PLL logic that has not been modelled yet
(create a separate clock instead).
The clock domains should be used as a mechanism to provide a
controllable clock source that affects clock for every clocked object
lying beneath it. The clock of the domain can (in a future patch) be
controlled by a handler responsible for dynamic frequency scaling of
the respective clock domains.
All the config scripts have been retro-fitted with clock domains. For
the System a default SrcClockDomain is created. For CPUs that run at a
different speed than the system, there is a seperate clock domain
created. This domain incorporates the CPU and the associated
caches. As before, Ruby runs under its own clock domain.
The clock period of all domains are pre-computed, such that no virtual
functions or multiplications are needed when calling
clockPeriod. Instead, the clock period is pre-computed when any
changes occur. For this to be possible, each clock domain tracks its
children.
This patch adds a 'sys_clock' command-line option and use it to assign
clocks to the system during instantiation.
As part of this change, the default clock in the System class is
removed and whenever a system is instantiated a system clock value
must be set. A default value is provided for the command-line option.
The configs and tests are updated accordingly.
This patch removes the explicit setting of the clock period for
certain instances of CoherentBus, NonCoherentBus and IOCache where the
specified clock is same as the default value of the system clock. As
all the values used are the defaults, there are no performance
changes. There are similar cases where the toL2Bus is set to use the
parent CPU clock which is already the default behaviour.
The main motivation for these simplifications is to ease the
introduction of clock domains.
This patch adds support for reading input traces encoded using
protobuf according to what is done in the CommMonitor.
A follow-up patch adds a Python script that can be used to convert the
previously used ASCII traces to protobuf equivalents. The appropriate
regression input is updated as part of this patch.
This patch adds packet tracing to the communication monitor using a
protobuf as the mechanism for creating the trace.
If no file is specified, then the tracing is disabled. If a file is
specified, then for every packet that is successfully sent, a protobuf
message is serialized to the file.
This patch adds a basic regression for the traffic generator. The
regression also serves as an example of the file formats used. More
complex regressions that make use of a DRAM controller model will
follow shortly.
