The cache queue reserve is there as an overflow to give us enough
headroom based on when we block the cache, and how many transactions
we may already have accepted before actually blocking. The previous
values were probably chosen to be "big enough", when we actually know
that we check the MSHRs after every single allocation, and for the
write buffers we know that we implicitly may need one entry for every
outstanding MSHR.
* * *
mem: Adjust cache queue reserve to more conservative values
The cache queue reserve is there as an overflow to give us enough
headroom based on when we block the cache, and how many transactions
we may already have accepted before actually blocking. The previous
values were probably chosen to be "big enough", when we actually know
that we check the MSHRs after every single allocation, and for the
write buffers we know that we implicitly may need one entry for every
outstanding MSHR.
This patch breaks out the cache write buffer into a separate class,
without affecting any stats. The goal of the patch is to avoid
encumbering the much-simpler write queue with the complex MSHR
handling. In a follow on patch this simplification allows us to
implement write combining.
The WriteQueue gets its own class, but shares a common ancestor, the
generic Queue, with the MSHRQueue.
This patch changes how the cache determines if snoops should be
forwarded from the memory side to the CPU side. Instead of having a
parameter, the cache now looks at the port connected on the CPU side,
and if it is a snooping port, then snoops are forwarded. Less error
prone, and less parameters to worry about.
The patch also tidies up the CPU classes to ensure that their I-side
port is not snooping by removing overrides to the snoop request
handler, such that snoop requests will panic via the default
MasterPort implement
Open up for other subclasses to BaseCache and transition to using the
explicit Cache subclass.
--HG--
rename : src/mem/cache/BaseCache.py => src/mem/cache/Cache.py
Draining is currently done by traversing the SimObject graph and
calling drain()/drainResume() on the SimObjects. This is not ideal
when non-SimObjects (e.g., ports) need draining since this means that
SimObjects owning those objects need to be aware of this.
This changeset moves the responsibility for finding objects that need
draining from SimObjects and the Python-side of the simulator to the
DrainManager. The DrainManager now maintains a set of all objects that
need draining. To reduce the overhead in classes owning non-SimObjects
that need draining, objects inheriting from Drainable now
automatically register with the DrainManager. If such an object is
destroyed, it is automatically unregistered. This means that drain()
and drainResume() should never be called directly on a Drainable
object.
While implementing the new functionality, the DrainManager has now
been made thread safe. In practice, this means that it takes a lock
whenever it manipulates the set of Drainable objects since SimObjects
in different threads may create Drainable objects
dynamically. Similarly, the drain counter is now an atomic_uint, which
ensures that it is manipulated correctly when objects signal that they
are done draining.
A nice side effect of these changes is that it makes the drain state
changes stricter, which the simulation scripts can exploit to avoid
redundant drains.
The drain state enum is currently a part of the Drainable
interface. The same state machine will be used by the DrainManager to
identify the global state of the simulator. Make the drain state a
global typed enum to better cater for this usage scenario.
This patch takes the final step in removing the is_top_level parameter
from the cache. With the recent changes to read requests and write
invalidations, the parameter is no longer needed, and consequently
removed.
This also means that asymmetric cache hierarchies are now fully
supported (and we are actually using them already with L1 caches, but
no table-walker caches, connected to a shared L2).
This patch adds two new read requests packets:
ReadCleanReq - For a cache to explicitly request clean data. The
response is thus exclusive or shared, but not owned or modified. The
read-only caches (see previous patch) use this request type to ensure
they do not get dirty data.
ReadSharedReq - We add this to distinguish cache read requests from
those issued by other masters, such as devices and CPUs. Thus, devices
use ReadReq, and caches use ReadCleanReq, ReadExReq, or
ReadSharedReq. For the latter, the response can be any state, shared,
exclusive, owned or even modified.
Both ReadCleanReq and ReadSharedReq re-use the normal ReadResp. The
two transactions are aligned with the emerging cache-coherent TLM
standard and the AMBA nomenclature.
With this change, the normal ReadReq should never be used by a cache,
and is reserved for the actual (non-caching) masters in the system. We
thus have a way of identifying if a request came from a cache or
not. The introduction of ReadSharedReq thus removes the need for the
current isTopLevel hack, and also allows us to stop relying on
checking the packet size to determine if the source is a cache or
not. This is fixed in follow-on patches.
This patch adds a parameter to the BaseCache to enable a read-only
cache, for example for the instruction cache, or table-walker cache
(not for x86). A number of checks are put in place in the code to
ensure a read-only cache does not end up with dirty data.
A follow-on patch adds suitable read requests to allow a read-only
cache to explicitly ask for clean data.
This patch takes a last step in fixing issues related to uncacheable
accesses. We do not separate uncacheable memory from uncacheable
devices, and in cases where it is really memory, there are valid
scenarios where we need to snoop since we do not support cache
maintenance instructions (yet). On snooping an uncacheable access we
thus provide data if possible. In essence this makes uncacheable
accesses IO coherent.
The snoop filter is also queried to steer the snoops, but not updated
since the uncacheable accesses do not allocate a block.
This patch changes the cache implementation to rely on virtual methods
rather than using the replacement policy as a template argument.
There is no impact on the simulation performance, and overall the
changes make it easier to modify (and subclass) the cache and/or
replacement policy.
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 adds some much-needed clarity in the specification of the
cache timing. For now, hit_latency and response_latency are kept as
top-level parameters, but the cache itself has a number of local
variables to better map the individual timing variables to different
behaviours (and sub-components).
The introduced variables are:
- lookupLatency: latency of tag lookup, occuring on any access
- forwardLatency: latency that occurs in case of outbound miss
- fillLatency: latency to fill a cache block
We keep the existing responseLatency
The forwardLatency is used by allocateInternalBuffer() for:
- MSHR allocateWriteBuffer (unchached write forwarded to WriteBuffer);
- MSHR allocateMissBuffer (cacheable miss in MSHR queue);
- MSHR allocateUncachedReadBuffer (unchached read allocated in MSHR
queue)
It is our assumption that the time for the above three buffers is the
same. Similarly, for snoop responses passing through the cache we use
forwardLatency.
Adds a new parameter that reserves some number of MSHR entries for demand
accesses. This helps prevent prefetchers from taking all MSHRs, forcing demand
requests from the CPU to stall.
Static analysis unearther a bunch of uninitialised variables and
members, and this patch addresses the problem. In all cases these
omissions seem benign in the end, but at least fixing them means less
false positives next time round.
Support full-block writes directly rather than requiring RMW:
* a cache line is allocated in the cache upon receipt of a
WriteInvalidateReq, not the WriteInvalidateResp.
* only top-level caches allocate the line; the others just pass
the request along and invalidate as necessary.
* to close a timing window between the *Req and the *Resp, a new
metadata bit tracks whether another cache has read a copy of
the new line before the writeback to memory.
This patch fixes a bug in the cache port where the retry flag was
reset too early, allowing new requests to arrive before the retry was
actually sent, but with the event already scheduled. This caused a
deadlock in the interactions with the O3 LSQ.
The patche fixes the underlying issue by shifting the resetting of the
flag to be done by the event that also calls sendRetry(). The patch
also tidies up the flow control in recvTimingReq and ensures that we
also check if we already have a retry outstanding.
this patch implements a new tags class that uses a random replacement policy.
these tags prefer to evict invalid blocks first, if none are available a
replacement candidate is chosen at random.
this patch factors out the common code in the LRU class and creates a new
abstract class: the BaseSetAssoc class. any set associative tag class must
implement the functionality related to the actual replacement policy in the
following methods:
accessBlock()
findVictim()
insertBlock()
invalidate()
This patch makes it possible to once again build gem5 without any
ISA. The main purpose is to enable work around the interconnect and
memory system without having to build any CPU models or device models.
The regress script is updated to include the NULL ISA target. Currently
no regressions make use of it, but all the testers could (and perhaps
should) transition to it.
--HG--
rename : build_opts/NOISA => build_opts/NULL
rename : src/arch/noisa/SConsopts => src/arch/null/SConsopts
rename : src/arch/noisa/cpu_dummy.hh => src/arch/null/cpu_dummy.hh
rename : src/cpu/intr_control.cc => src/cpu/intr_control_noisa.cc
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 reorganizes the cache tags to allow more flexibility to
implement new replacement policies. The base tags class is now a
clocked object so that derived classes can use a clock if they need
one. Also having deriving from SimObject allows specialized Tag
classes to be swapped in/out in .py files.
The cache set is now templatized to allow it to contain customized
cache blocks with additional informaiton. This involved moving code to
the .hh file and removing cacheset.cc.
The statistics belonging to the cache tags are now including ".tags"
in their name. Hence, the stats need an update to reflect the change
in naming.
This patch solves the corner case scenario where the sendRetryEvent could be
scheduled twice, when an io device stresses the IOcache in the system. This
should not be possible in the cache system.
the cache drainManager is set but never cleared, this is because
the cache itself does not need to be drained and thus never
triggers a signalDrainDone(). because the drainManager variable
is not used properly and does not appear to be necessary it has
been removed with this patch.
This patch adds support for the following optional drain methods in
the classical memory system's cache model:
memWriteback() - Write back all dirty cache lines to memory using
functional accesses.
memInvalidate() - Invalidate all cache lines. Dirty cache lines
are lost unless a writeback is requested.
Since memWriteback() is called when checkpointing systems, this patch
adds support for checkpointing systems with caches. The serialization
code now checks whether there are any dirty lines in the cache. If
there are dirty lines in the cache, the checkpoint is flagged as bad
and a warning is printed.
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 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 changes the cache-related latencies from an absolute time
expressed in Ticks, to a number of cycles that can be scaled with the
clock period of the caches. Ultimately this patch serves to enable
future work that involves dynamic frequency scaling. As an immediate
benefit it also makes it more convenient to specify cache performance
without implicitly assuming a specific CPU core operating frequency.
The stat blocked_cycles that actually counter in ticks is now updated
to count in cycles.
As the timing is now rounded to the clock edges of the cache, there
are some regressions that change. Plenty of them have very minor
changes, whereas some regressions with a short run-time are perturbed
quite significantly. A follow-on patch updates all the statistics for
the regressions.
In the current caches the hit latency is paid twice on a miss. This patch lets
a configurable response latency be set of the cache for the backward path.
This patch fixes some problems with the drain/switchout functionality
for the O3 cpu and for the ARM ISA and adds some useful debug print
statements.
This is an incremental fix as there are still a few bugs/mem leaks with the
switchout code. Particularly when switching from an O3CPU to a
TimingSimpleCPU. However, when switching from O3 to O3 cores with the ARM ISA
I haven't encountered any more assertion failures; now the kernel will
typically panic inside of simulation.
This patch introduces the notion of a master and slave port in the C++
code, thus bringing the previous classification from the Python
classes into the corresponding simulation objects and memory objects.
The patch enables us to classify behaviours into the two bins and add
assumptions and enfore compliance, also simplifying the two
interfaces. As a starting point, isSnooping is confined to a master
port, and getAddrRanges to slave ports. More of these specilisations
are to come in later patches.
The getPort function is not getMasterPort and getSlavePort, and
returns a port reference rather than a pointer as NULL would never be
a valid return value. The default implementation of these two
functions is placed in MemObject, and calls fatal.
The one drawback with this specific patch is that it requires some
code duplication, e.g. QueuedPort becomes QueuedMasterPort and
QueuedSlavePort, and BusPort becomes BusMasterPort and BusSlavePort
(avoiding multiple inheritance). With the later introduction of the
port interfaces, moving the functionality outside the port itself, a
lot of the duplicated code will disappear again.
This patch decouples the queueing and the port interactions to
simplify the introduction of the master and slave ports. By separating
the queueing functionality from the port itself, it becomes much
easier to distinguish between master and slave ports, and still retain
the queueing ability for both (without code duplication).
As part of the split into a PacketQueue and a port, there is now also
a hierarchy of two port classes, QueuedPort and SimpleTimingPort. The
QueuedPort is useful for ports that want to leave the packet
transmission of outgoing packets to the queue and is used by both
master and slave ports. The SimpleTimingPort inherits from the
QueuedPort and adds the implemention of recvTiming and recvFunctional
through recvAtomic.
The PioPort and MessagePort are cleaned up as part of the changes.
--HG--
rename : src/mem/tport.cc => src/mem/packet_queue.cc
rename : src/mem/tport.hh => src/mem/packet_queue.hh
This patch splits the two cache ports into a master (memory-side) and
slave (cpu-side) subclass of port with slightly different
functionality. For example, it is only the CPU-side port that blocks
incoming requests, and only the memory-side port that schedules send
events outside of what the transmit list dictates.
This patch simplifies the two classes by relying further on
SimpleTimingPort and also generalises the latter to better accommodate
the changes (introducing trySendTiming and scheduleSend). The
memory-side cache port overrides sendDeferredPacket to be able to not
only send responses from the transmit list, but also send requests
based on the MSHRs.
A follow on patch further simplifies the SimpleTimingPort and the
cache ports.
This patch fixes the cache stats to use the new request ids.
Cache stats also display the requestor names in the vector subnames.
Most cache stats now include "nozero" and "nonan" flags to reduce the
amount of excessive cache stat dump. Also, simplified
incMissCount()/incHitCount() functions.
This patch is a very straight-forward simplification, removing the
unecessary otherPort pointer from the cache port. The pointer was only
used to forward range changes, and the address range is fixed for the
cache. Removing the pointer simplifies the transition to master/slave
ports.
This patch simplifies the address-range determination mechanism and
also unifies the naming across ports and devices. It further splits
the queries for determining if a port is snooping and what address
ranges it responds to (aiming towards a separation of
cache-maintenance ports and pure memory-mapped ports). Default
behaviours are such that most ports do not have to define isSnooping,
and master ports need not implement getAddrRanges.
This patch removes the inheritance of EventManager from the ports and
moves all responsibility for event queues to the owner. Eventually the
event manager should be the interface block, which could either be the
structural owner or a subblock like a LSQ in the O3 CPU for example.
At the same time, rename the trace flags to debug flags since they
have broader usage than simply tracing. This means that
--trace-flags is now --debug-flags and --trace-help is now --debug-help
