take away all instances of reqMap in the code and make all references use the built-in
request vectors inside of each resource. The request map was dynamically allocating
a request per instruction. The request vector just allocates N number of requests
during instantiation and then the surrounding code is fixed up to reuse those N requests
***
setRequest() and clearRequest() are the new accessors needed to define a new
request in a resource
we are going to be getting away from creating new resource requests for every
instruction so no more need to keep track of a reqRemoveList and clean it up
every tick
first change in an optimization that will stop InOrder from allocating new memory for every instruction's
request to a resource. This gets expensive since every instruction needs to access ~10 requests before
graduation. Instead, the plan is to allocate just enough resource request objects to satisfy each resource's
bandwidth (e.g. the execution unit would need to allocate 3 resource request objects for a 1-issue pipeline
since on any given cycle it could have 2 read requests and 1 write request) and then let the instructions
contend and reuse those allocated requests. The end result is a smaller memory footprint for the InOrder model
and increased simulation performance
Maintain all information about an instruction's fault in the DynInst object rather
than any cpu-request object. Also, if there is a fault during the execution stage
then just save the fault inside the instruction and trap once the instruction
tries to graduate
Give fetch unit it's own parameterizable fetch buffer to read from. Very inefficient
(architecturally and in simulation) to continually fetch at the granularity of the
wordsize. As expected, the number of fetch memory requests drops dramatically
instead of having one cache-unit class be responsible for both data and code
accesses, separate code that is just for fetch in it's own derived class off the
original base class. This makes the code easier to manage as well as handle
future cases of special fetch handling
This change modifies the way prefetches work. They are now like normal loads
that don't writeback a register. Previously prefetches were supposed to call
prefetch() on the exection context, so they executed with execute() methods
instead of initiateAcc() completeAcc(). The prefetch() methods for all the CPUs
are blank, meaning that they get executed, but don't actually do anything.
On Alpha dead cache copy code was removed and prefetches are now normal ops.
They count as executed operations, but still don't do anything and IsMemRef is
not longer set on them.
On ARM IsDataPrefetch or IsInstructionPreftech is now set on all prefetch
instructions. The timing simple CPU doesn't try to do anything special for
prefetches now and they execute with the normal memory code path.
This change is a low level and pervasive reorganization of how PCs are managed
in M5. Back when Alpha was the only ISA, there were only 2 PCs to worry about,
the PC and the NPC, and the lsb of the PC signaled whether or not you were in
PAL mode. As other ISAs were added, we had to add an NNPC, micro PC and next
micropc, x86 and ARM introduced variable length instruction sets, and ARM
started to keep track of mode bits in the PC. Each CPU model handled PCs in
its own custom way that needed to be updated individually to handle the new
dimensions of variability, or, in the case of ARMs mode-bit-in-the-pc hack,
the complexity could be hidden in the ISA at the ISA implementation's expense.
Areas like the branch predictor hadn't been updated to handle branch delay
slots or micropcs, and it turns out that had introduced a significant (10s of
percent) performance bug in SPARC and to a lesser extend MIPS. Rather than
perpetuate the problem by reworking O3 again to handle the PC features needed
by x86, this change was introduced to rework PC handling in a more modular,
transparent, and hopefully efficient way.
PC type:
Rather than having the superset of all possible elements of PC state declared
in each of the CPU models, each ISA defines its own PCState type which has
exactly the elements it needs. A cross product of canned PCState classes are
defined in the new "generic" ISA directory for ISAs with/without delay slots
and microcode. These are either typedef-ed or subclassed by each ISA. To read
or write this structure through a *Context, you use the new pcState() accessor
which reads or writes depending on whether it has an argument. If you just
want the address of the current or next instruction or the current micro PC,
you can get those through read-only accessors on either the PCState type or
the *Contexts. These are instAddr(), nextInstAddr(), and microPC(). Note the
move away from readPC. That name is ambiguous since it's not clear whether or
not it should be the actual address to fetch from, or if it should have extra
bits in it like the PAL mode bit. Each class is free to define its own
functions to get at whatever values it needs however it needs to to be used in
ISA specific code. Eventually Alpha's PAL mode bit could be moved out of the
PC and into a separate field like ARM.
These types can be reset to a particular pc (where npc = pc +
sizeof(MachInst), nnpc = npc + sizeof(MachInst), upc = 0, nupc = 1 as
appropriate), printed, serialized, and compared. There is a branching()
function which encapsulates code in the CPU models that checked if an
instruction branched or not. Exactly what that means in the context of branch
delay slots which can skip an instruction when not taken is ambiguous, and
ideally this function and its uses can be eliminated. PCStates also generally
know how to advance themselves in various ways depending on if they point at
an instruction, a microop, or the last microop of a macroop. More on that
later.
Ideally, accessing all the PCs at once when setting them will improve
performance of M5 even though more data needs to be moved around. This is
because often all the PCs need to be manipulated together, and by getting them
all at once you avoid multiple function calls. Also, the PCs of a particular
thread will have spatial locality in the cache. Previously they were grouped
by element in arrays which spread out accesses.
Advancing the PC:
The PCs were previously managed entirely by the CPU which had to know about PC
semantics, try to figure out which dimension to increment the PC in, what to
set NPC/NNPC, etc. These decisions are best left to the ISA in conjunction
with the PC type itself. Because most of the information about how to
increment the PC (mainly what type of instruction it refers to) is contained
in the instruction object, a new advancePC virtual function was added to the
StaticInst class. Subclasses provide an implementation that moves around the
right element of the PC with a minimal amount of decision making. In ISAs like
Alpha, the instructions always simply assign NPC to PC without having to worry
about micropcs, nnpcs, etc. The added cost of a virtual function call should
be outweighed by not having to figure out as much about what to do with the
PCs and mucking around with the extra elements.
One drawback of making the StaticInsts advance the PC is that you have to
actually have one to advance the PC. This would, superficially, seem to
require decoding an instruction before fetch could advance. This is, as far as
I can tell, realistic. fetch would advance through memory addresses, not PCs,
perhaps predicting new memory addresses using existing ones. More
sophisticated decisions about control flow would be made later on, after the
instruction was decoded, and handed back to fetch. If branching needs to
happen, some amount of decoding needs to happen to see that it's a branch,
what the target is, etc. This could get a little more complicated if that gets
done by the predecoder, but I'm choosing to ignore that for now.
Variable length instructions:
To handle variable length instructions in x86 and ARM, the predecoder now
takes in the current PC by reference to the getExtMachInst function. It can
modify the PC however it needs to (by setting NPC to be the PC + instruction
length, for instance). This could be improved since the CPU doesn't know if
the PC was modified and always has to write it back.
ISA parser:
To support the new API, all PC related operand types were removed from the
parser and replaced with a PCState type. There are two warts on this
implementation. First, as with all the other operand types, the PCState still
has to have a valid operand type even though it doesn't use it. Second, using
syntax like PCS.npc(target) doesn't work for two reasons, this looks like the
syntax for operand type overriding, and the parser can't figure out if you're
reading or writing. Instructions that use the PCS operand (which I've
consistently called it) need to first read it into a local variable,
manipulate it, and then write it back out.
Return address stack:
The return address stack needed a little extra help because, in the presence
of branch delay slots, it has to merge together elements of the return PC and
the call PC. To handle that, a buildRetPC utility function was added. There
are basically only two versions in all the ISAs, but it didn't seem short
enough to put into the generic ISA directory. Also, the branch predictor code
in O3 and InOrder were adjusted so that they always store the PC of the actual
call instruction in the RAS, not the next PC. If the call instruction is a
microop, the next PC refers to the next microop in the same macroop which is
probably not desirable. The buildRetPC function advances the PC intelligently
to the next macroop (in an ISA specific way) so that that case works.
Change in stats:
There were no change in stats except in MIPS and SPARC in the O3 model. MIPS
runs in about 9% fewer ticks. SPARC runs with 30%-50% fewer ticks, which could
likely be improved further by setting call/return instruction flags and taking
advantage of the RAS.
TODO:
Add != operators to the PCState classes, defined trivially to be !(a==b).
Smooth out places where PCs are split apart, passed around, and put back
together later. I think this might happen in SPARC's fault code. Add ISA
specific constructors that allow setting PC elements without calling a bunch
of accessors. Try to eliminate the need for the branching() function. Factor
out Alpha's PAL mode pc bit into a separate flag field, and eliminate places
where it's blindly masked out or tested in the PC.
Also move the "Fault" reference counted pointer type into a separate file,
sim/fault.hh. It would be better to name this less similarly to sim/faults.hh
to reduce confusion, but fault.hh matches the name of the type. We could change
Fault to FaultPtr to match other pointer types, and then changing the name of
the file would make more sense.
printMemData is only used in DPRINTFs. If those are removed by compiling
m5.fast, that function is unused, gcc generates a warning, that gets turned
into an error, and the build fails. This change surrounds the function
definition with #if TRACING_ON so it only gets compiled in if the DPRINTFs do
to.
- use InOrderBPred instead of Resource for DPRINTFs
- account for DELAY SLOT in updating RAS and in squashing
- don't let squashed instructions update the predictor
- the BTB needs to use the ASID not the TID to work for multithreaded programs
- add stats for BTB hits
when insts execute, they mark the time they finish to be used for subsequent isnts
they may need forwarding of data. However, the regdepmap was using the wrong
value to index into the destination operands of the instruction to be forwarded.
Thus, in some cases, we are checking to see if the 3rd destination register
for an instruction is executed at a certain time, when there is only 1 dest. register
valid. Thus, we get a bad, uninitialized time value that will stall forwarding
causing performance loss but still the correct execution.
Accessing traceData (to call setAddress() and/or setData())
after initiating a timing translation was causing crashes,
since a failed translation could delete the traceData
object before returning.
It turns out that there was never a need to access traceData
after initiating the translation, as the traced data was
always available earlier; this ordering was merely
historical. Furthermore, traceData->setAddress() and
traceData->setData() were being called both from the CPU
model and the ISA definition, often redundantly.
This patch standardizes all setAddress and setData calls
for memory instructions to be in the CPU models and not
in the ISA definition. It also moves those calls above
the translation calls to eliminate the crashes.
- on certain retry requests you can get an assertion failure
- fix by allowing the request to literally "Retry" itself
if it wasnt successful before, and then block any requests
through cache port while waiting for the cache to be
made available for access
when threads are switching in/out the CPU, we need to keep
track of special cases like branches. Add appropriate
variables in ThreadState t track this and then use
these variables when updating pc after context switch
this will be used for when a thread comes back from a cache miss, it needs to update the PCs
because the inst might of been a branch or delayslot in which the next PC isnt always
a straight addition
allow a thread to wakeup and be activated after
it has been in suspended state and another
thread is switched out. Need to give
pipeline stages a "activateThread" function
so that can get to their suspended instruction
when the time is right.
give resources their own specific
activity to do for a "suspend" event
instead of defaulting to deactivating the thread for a
suspend thread event. This really matters
for the fetch sequence unit which wants to remove the
thread from fetching while other units want to
ignore a thread suspension. If you deactivate a thread
in a resource then you may lose some of the allotted
bandwidth that the thread is taking up...
add code to recognize memory stalls in resources and the pipeline as well
as squash a thread if there is a stall and we are in the switch on cache miss
model
