This patch adds the row bits to the name of the address mapping
schemes to make it more clear that all the current schemes places the
row bits as the most significant bits.
This patch adds a basic adaptive version of the open-page policy that
guides the decision to keep open or close by looking at the contents
of the controller queues. If no row hits are found, and bank conflicts
are present, then the row is closed by means of an auto
precharge. This is a well-known technique that should improve
performance in most use-cases.
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 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 adds support for specifying multi-channel memory
configurations on the command line, e.g. 'se/fs.py
--mem-type=ddr3_1600_x64 --mem-channels=4'. To enable this, it
enhances the functionality of MemConfig and moves the existing
makeMultiChannel class method from SimpleDRAM to the support scripts.
The se/fs.py example scripts are updated to make use of the new
feature.
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 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 changes the class names of the variuos DRAM configurations
to better reflect what memory they are based on. The speed and
interface width is now part of the name, and also the alias that is
used to select them on the command line.
Some minor changes are done to the actual parameters, to better
reflect the named configurations. As a result of these changes the
regressions change slightly and the stats will be bumped in a separate
patch.
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 adds a typical (leaning towards fast) LPDDR3 configuration
based on publically available data. As expected, it looks very similar
to the LPDDR2-S4 configuration, only with a slightly lower burst time.
This patch adapts the existing LPDDR2 configuration to make use of the
multi-channel functionality. Thus, to get a x64 interface two
controllers should be instantiated using the makeMultiChannel method.
The page size and ranks are also adapted to better suit with a typical
LPDDR2 part.
This patch adds an address mapping scheme where the channel
interleaving takes place on a cache line granularity. It is similar to
the existing RaBaChCo that interleaves on a DRAM page, but should give
higher performance when there is less locality in the address
stream.
This patch changes the slightly ambigious names used for the address
mapping scheme to be more descriptive, and actually spell out what
they do. With this patch we also open up for adding more flavours of
open- and close-type mappings, i.e. interleaving across channels with
the open map.
This patch adds a WideIO 200 MHz configuration that can be used as a
baseline to compare with DDRx and LPDDRx. Note that it is a single
channel and that it should be replicated 4 times. It is based on
publically available information and attempts to capture an envisioned
8 Gbit single-die part (i.e. without TSVs).
This patch adds a class method that allows easy creation of
channel-interleaved multi-channel DRAM configurations. It is enabled
by a class method to allow customisation of the class independent of
the channel configuration. For example, the user can create a MyDDR
subclass of e.g. SimpleDDR3, and then create a four-channel
configuration of the subclass by calling MyDDR.makeMultiChannel(4,
mem_start, mem_size).
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 moves the default DRAM parameters from the SimpleDRAM class
to two different subclasses, one for DDR3 and one for LPDDR2. More can
be added as we go forward.
The regressions that previously used the SimpleDRAM are now using
SimpleDDR3 as this is the most similar configuration.
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.
When casting objects in the generated SWIG interfaces, SWIG uses
classical C-style casts ( (Foo *)bar; ). In some cases, this can
degenerate into the equivalent of a reinterpret_cast (mainly if only a
forward declaration of the type is available). This usually works for
most compilers, but it is known to break if multiple inheritance is
used anywhere in the object hierarchy.
This patch introduces the cxx_header attribute to Python SimObject
definitions, which should be used to specify a header to include in
the SWIG interface. The header should include the declaration of the
wrapped object. We currently don't enforce header the use of the
header attribute, but a warning will be generated for objects that do
not use it.
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.
