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 fixes the CommMonitor local variable names, and also
introduces a variable to capture if it expects to see a response. The
latter check considers both needsResponse and memInhibitAsserted.
This patch adds a predecessor field to the SenderState base class to
make the process of linking them up more uniform, and enable a
traversal of the stack without knowing the specific type of the
subclasses.
There are a number of simplifications done as part of changing the
SenderState, particularly in the RubyTest.
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 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 makes getAddrRanges const throughout the code base. There
is no reason why it should not be, and making it const prevents adding
any unintentional side-effects.
This patch adds a communication monitor MemObject that can be inserted
between a master and slave port to provide a range of statistics about
the communication passing through it. The communication monitor is
non-invasive and does not change any properties or timing of the
packets, with the exception of adding a sender state to be able to
track latency. The statistics are only collected in timing mode (not
atomic) to avoid slowing down any fast forwarding.
An example of the statistics captured by the monitor are: read/write
burst lengths, bandwidth, request-response latency, outstanding
transactions, inter transaction time, transaction count, and address
distribution. The monitor can be used in combination with periodic
resetting and dumping of stats (through schedStatEvent) to study the
behaviour over time.
In future patches, a selection of convenience scripts will be added to
aid in visualising the statistics collected by the monitor.
