Mwait works as follows:
1. A cpu monitors an address of interest (monitor instruction)
2. A cpu calls mwait - this loads the cache line into that cpu's cache.
3. The cpu goes to sleep.
4. When another processor requests write permission for the line, it is
evicted from the sleeping cpu's cache. This eviction is forwarded to the
sleeping cpu, which then wakes up.
Committed by: Nilay Vaish <nilay@cs.wisc.edu>
Fixes a bug where Minor drains in the midst of committing a
conditional store.
While committing a conditional store, lastCommitWasEndOfMacroop is true
(from the previous instruction) as we still haven't finished the conditional
store. If a drain occurs before the cache response, Minor would check just
lastCommitWasEndOfMacroop, which was true, and set drainState=DrainHaltFetch,
which increases the streamSeqNum. This caused the conditional store to be
squashed when the memory responded and it completed. However, to the memory
the store succeeded, while to the instruction sequence it never occurred.
In the case of an LLSC, the instruction sequence will replay the squashed
STREX, which will fail as the cache is no longer in LLSC. Then the
instruction sequence will loop back to a LDREX, which receives the updated
(incorrect) value.
Committed by: Nilay Vaish <nilay@cs.wisc.edu>
This patch fixes a bug where a completing load or store which is also a
barrier can push a barrier into the store buffer without first checking
that there is a free slot.
The bug was not fatal but would print a warning that the store buffer
was full when inserting.
This changeset adds probe points that can be used to implement PMU
counters for CPU stats. The following probes are supported:
* BaseCPU::ppCycles / Cycles
* BaseCPU::ppRetiredInsts / RetiredInsts
* BaseCPU::ppRetiredLoads / RetiredLoads
* BaseCPU::ppRetiredStores / RetiredStores
* BaseCPU::ppRetiredBranches RetiredBranches
This patch optimises the passing of StaticInstPtr by avoiding copying
the reference-counting pointer. This avoids first incrementing and
then decrementing the reference-counting pointer.
activate(), suspend(), and halt() used on thread contexts had an optional
delay parameter. However this parameter was often ignored. Also, when used,
the delay was seemily arbitrarily set to 0 or 1 cycle (no other delays were
ever specified). This patch removes the delay parameter and 'Events'
associated with them across all ISAs and cores. Unused activate logic
is also removed.
This patch changes how faults are passed between methods in an attempt
to copy as few reference-counting pointer instances as possible. This
should avoid unecessary copies being created, contributing to the
increment/decrement of the reference counters.
This patch fixes cases where uncacheable/memory type flags are not set
correctly on a memory op which is split in the LSQ. Without this
patch, request->request if freely used to check flags where the flags
should actually come from the accumulation of request fragment flags.
This patch also fixes a bug where an uncacheable access which passes
through tryToSendRequest more than once can increment
LSQ::numAccessesInMemorySystem more than once.
We currently generate and compile one version of the ISA code per CPU
model. This is obviously wasting a lot of resources at compile
time. This changeset factors out the interface into a separate
ExecContext class, which also serves as documentation for the
interface between CPUs and the ISA code. While doing so, this
changeset also fixes up interface inconsistencies between the
different CPU models.
The main argument for using one set of ISA code per CPU model has
always been performance as this avoid indirect branches in the
generated code. However, this argument does not hold water. Booting
Linux on a simulated ARM system running in atomic mode
(opt/10.linux-boot/realview-simple-atomic) is actually 2% faster
(compiled using clang 3.4) after applying this patch. Additionally,
compilation time is decreased by 35%.
This patch contains a new CPU model named `Minor'. Minor models a four
stage in-order execution pipeline (fetch lines, decompose into
macroops, decompose macroops into microops, execute).
The model was developed to support the ARM ISA but should be fixable
to support all the remaining gem5 ISAs. It currently also works for
Alpha, and regressions are included for ARM and Alpha (including Linux
boot).
Documentation for the model can be found in src/doc/inside-minor.doxygen and
its internal operations can be visualised using the Minorview tool
utils/minorview.py.
Minor was designed to be fairly simple and not to engage in a lot of
instruction annotation. As such, it currently has very few gathered
stats and may lack other gem5 features.
Minor is faster than the o3 model. Sample results:
Benchmark | Stat host_seconds (s)
---------------+--------v--------v--------
(on ARM, opt) | simple | o3 | minor
| timing | timing | timing
---------------+--------+--------+--------
10.linux-boot | 169 | 1883 | 1075
10.mcf | 117 | 967 | 491
20.parser | 668 | 6315 | 3146
30.eon | 542 | 3413 | 2414
40.perlbmk | 2339 | 20905 | 11532
50.vortex | 122 | 1094 | 588
60.bzip2 | 2045 | 18061 | 9662
70.twolf | 207 | 2736 | 1036
