This patch renames the not-so-simple SimpleDRAM to a more suitable
DRAMCtrl. The name change is intended to ensure that we do not send
the wrong message (although the "simple" in SimpleDRAM was originally
intended as in cleverly simple, or elegant).
As the DRAM controller modelling work is being presented at ISPASS'14
our hope is that a broader audience will use the model in the future.
--HG--
rename : src/mem/SimpleDRAM.py => src/mem/DRAMCtrl.py
rename : src/mem/simple_dram.cc => src/mem/dram_ctrl.cc
rename : src/mem/simple_dram.hh => src/mem/dram_ctrl.hh
This patch adds a basic starvation-prevention mechanism where a DRAM
page is forced to close after a certain number of accesses. The limit
is combined with the open and open-adaptive page policy and if reached
causes an auto-precharge.
This patch changes the triggering condition for the write draining
such that we grab the opportunity to issue writes if there are no
reads waiting (as opposed to waiting for the writes to reach the high
threshold). As a result, we potentially drain some of the writes in read
idle periods (if any).
A low threshold is added to be able to control how many write bursts
are kept in the memory controller queue (acting as on-chip storage).
The high and low thresholds are updated to sensible values for a 32/64
size write buffer. Note that the thresholds should be adjusted along
with the queue sizes.
This patch also adds some basic initialisation sanity checks and moves
part of the initialisation to the constructor.
This patch fixes a number of stats accounting issues in the DRAM
controller. Most importantly, it separates the system interface and
DRAM interface so that it is clearer what the actual DRAM bandwidth
(and consequently utilisation) is.
This patch unifies the request selection across read and write queues
for FR-FCFS scheduling policy. It also fixes the request selection
code to prioritize the row hits present in the request queues over the
selection based on earliest bank availability.
This patch removes the untimed while loop in the write scheduling
mechanism and now schedule commands taking into account the minimum
timing constraint. It also introduces an optimization to track write
queue size and switch from writes to reads if the number of write
requests fall below write low threshold.
This patch adds the tRRD parameter to the DRAM controller. With the
recent addition of the actAllowedAt member for each bank, this
addition is trivial.
This patch changes the tXAW constraint so that it is enforced per rank
rather than globally for all ranks in the channel. It also avoids
using the bank freeAt to enforce the activation limit, as doing so
also precludes performing any column or row command to the
DRAM. Instead the patch introduces a new variable actAllowedAt for the
banks and use this to track when a potential activation can occur.
This patch changes the FCFS bit of FR-FCFS such that requests that
target the earliest available bank are picked first (as suggested in
the original work on FR-FCFS by Rixner et al). To accommodate this we
add functionality to identify a bank through a one-dimensional
identifier (bank id). The member names of the DRAMPacket are also
update to match the style guide.
This patch adds an explicit tRAS parameter to the DRAM controller
model. Previously tRAS was, rather conservatively, assumed to be tRCD
+ tCL + tRP. The default values for tRAS are chosen to match the
previous behaviour and will be updated later.
This patch changes the data structure used for the DRAM read, write
and response queues from an STL list to deque. This optimisation is
based on the observation that the size is small (and fixed), and that
the structures are frequently iterated over in a linear fashion.
This patch implements basic write merging in the DRAM to avoid
redundant bursts. When a new access is added to the queue it is
compared against the existing entries, and if it is either
intersecting or immediately succeeding/preceeding an existing item it
is merged.
There is currently no attempt made at avoiding iterating over the
existing items in determining whether merging is possible or not.
This patch gets rid of bytesPerCacheLine parameter and makes the DRAM
configuration separate from cache line size. Instead of
bytesPerCacheLine, we define a parameter for the DRAM called
burst_length. The burst_length parameter shows the length of a DRAM
device burst in bits. Also, lines_per_rowbuffer is replaced with
device_rowbuffer_size to improve code portablity.
This patch adds a burst length in beats for each memory type, an
interface width for each memory type, and the memory controller model
is extended to reason about "system" packets vs "dram" packets and
assemble the responses properly. It means that system packets larger
than a full burst are split into multiple dram packets.
This patch adds a histogram to track how many bytes are accessed in an
open row before it is closed. This metric is useful in characterising
a workload and the efficiency of the DRAM scheduler. For example, a
DDR3-1600 device requires 44 cycles (tRC) before it can activate
another row in the same bank. For a x32 interface (8 bytes per cycle)
that means 8 x 44 = 352 bytes must be transferred to hide the
preparation time.
This patch adds a frontend and backend static latency to the DRAM
controller by delaying the responses. Two parameters expressing the
frontend and backend contributions in absolute time are added to the
controller, and the appropriate latency is added to the responses when
adding them to the (infinite) queued port for sending.
For writes and reads that hit in the write buffer, only the frontend
latency is added. For reads that are serviced by the DRAM, the static
latency is the sum of the pipeline latencies of the entire frontend,
backend and PHY. The default values are chosen based on having roughly
10 pipeline stages in total at 500 MHz.
In the future, it would be sensible to make the controller use its
clock and convert these latencies (and a few of the DRAM timings) to
cycles.
This patch fixes a number of small cosmetic issues in the SimpleDRAM
module. The most important change is to move the accounting of
received packets to after the check is made if the packet should be
retried or not. Thus, packets are only counted if they are actually
accepted.
This patch adds support for multi-channel instances of the DRAM
controller model by stripping away the channel bits in the address
decoding. The patch relies on the availiability of address
interleaving and, at this time, it is up to the user to configure the
interleaving appropriately. At the moment it is assumed that the
channel interleaving bits are immediately following the column bits
(smallest sensible interleaving). Convenience methods for building
multi-channel configurations will be added later.
This patch adds two additional scheduling constraints to the DRAM
controller model, to constrain the activation rate. The two metrics
are determine the size of the activation window in terms of the number
of activates and the minimum time required for that number of
activates. This maps to current DDRx, LPDDRx and WIOx standards that
have either tFAW (4 activate window) or tTAW (2 activate window)
scheduling constraints.
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 introduces a high-level model of a DRAM controller, with a
basic read/write buffer structure, a selectable and customisable
arbiter, a few address mapping options, and the basic DRAM timing
constraints. The parameters make it possible to turn this model into
any desired DDRx/LPDDRx/WideIOx memory controller.
The intention is not to be cycle accurate or capture every aspect of a
DDR DRAM interface, but rather to enable exploring of the high-level
knobs with a good simulation speed. Thus, contrary to e.g. DRAMSim
this module emphasizes simulation speed with a good-enough accuracy.
This module is merely a starting point, and there are plenty additions
and improvements to come. A notable addition is the support for
address-striping in the bus to enable a multi-channel DRAM
controller. Also note that there are still a few "todo's" in the code
base that will be addressed as we go along.
A follow-up patch will add basic performance regressions that use the
traffic generator to exercise a few well-defined corner cases.
