Previously, nextCycle() could return the *current* cycle if the current tick was
already aligned with the clock edge. This behavior is not only confusing (not
quite what the function name implies), but also caused problems in the
drainResume() function. When exiting/re-entering the sim loop (e.g., to take
checkpoints), the CPUs will drain and resume. Due to the previous behavior of
nextCycle(), the CPU tick events were being rescheduled in the same ticks that
were already processed before draining. This caused divergence from runs that
did not exit/re-entered the sim loop. (Initially a cycle difference, but a
significant impact later on.)
This patch separates out the two behaviors (nextCycle() and clockEdge()),
uses nextCycle() in drainResume, and uses clockEdge() everywhere else.
Nothing (other than name) should change except for the drainResume timing.
A set of patches was recently committed to allow multiple clock domains
in ruby. In those patches, I had inadvertently made an incorrect use of
the clocks. Suppose object A needs to schedule an event on object B. It
was possible that A accesses B's clock to schedule the event. This is not
possible in actual system. Hence, changes are being to the Consumer class
so as to avoid such happenings. Note that in a multi eventq simulation,
this can possibly lead to an incorrect simulation.
There are two functions in the Consumer class that are used for scheduling
events. The first function takes in the relative delay over the current time
as the argument and adds the current time to it for scheduling the event.
The second function takes in the absolute time (in ticks) for scheduling the
event. The first function is now being moved to protected section of the
class so that only objects of the derived classes can use it. All other
objects will have to specify absolute time while scheduling an event
for some consumer.
This patch makes the clock member private to the ClockedObject and
forces all children to access it using clockPeriod(). This makes it
impossible to inadvertently change the clock, and also makes it easier
to transition to a situation where the clock is derived from e.g. a
clock domain, or through a multiplier.
This patch allows ruby to have multiple clock domains. As I understand
with this patch, controllers can have different frequencies. The entire
network needs to run at a single frequency.
The idea is that with in an object, time is treated in terms of cycles.
But the messages that are passed from one entity to another should contain
the time in Ticks. As of now, this is only true for the message buffers,
but not for the links in the network. As I understand the code, all the
entities in different networks (simple, garnet-fixed, garnet-flexible) should
be clocked at the same frequency.
Another problem is that the directory controller has to operate at the same
frequency as the ruby system. This is because the memory controller does
not make use of the Message Buffer, and instead implements a buffer of its
own. So, it has no idea of the frequency at which the directory controller
is operating and uses ruby system's frequency for scheduling events.
The patch started of with replacing Time with Cycles in the Consumer class.
But to get ruby to compile, the rest of the changes had to be carried out.
Subsequent patches will further this process, till we completely replace
Time with Cycles.
This patch moves the draining interface from SimObject to a separate
class that can be used by any object needing draining. However,
objects not visible to the Python code (i.e., objects not deriving
from SimObject) still depend on their parents informing them when to
drain. This patch also gets rid of the CountedDrainEvent (which isn't
really an event) and replaces it with a DrainManager.
This patch adds support to different entities in the ruby memory system
for more reliable functional read/write accesses. Only the simple network
has been augmented as of now. Later on Garnet will also support functional
accesses.
The patch adds functional access code to all the different types of messages
that protocols can send around. These messages are functionally accessed
by going through the buffers maintained by the network entities.
The patch also rectifies some of the bugs found in coherence protocols while
testing the patch.
With this patch applied, functional writes always succeed. But functional
reads can still fail.
This patch removes printConfig() functions from all structures in Ruby.
Most of the information is already part of config.ini, and where ever it
is not, it would become in due course.
