This patch adds SMT support to the MinorCPU. Currently
RoundRobin or Random thread scheduling are supported.
Change-Id: I91faf39ff881af5918cca05051829fc6261f20e3
For historical reasons, the ExecContext interface had a single
function, readMem(), that did two different things depending on
whether the ExecContext supported atomic memory mode (i.e.,
AtomicSimpleCPU) or timing memory mode (all the other models).
In the former case, it actually performed a memory read; in the
latter case, it merely initiated a read access, and the read
completion did not happen until later when a response packet
arrived from the memory system.
This led to some confusing things, including timing accesses
being required to provide a pointer for the return data even
though that pointer was only used in atomic mode.
This patch splits this interface, adding a new initiateMemRead()
function to the ExecContext interface to replace the timing-mode
use of readMem().
For consistency and clarity, the readMemTiming() helper function
in the ISA definitions is renamed to initiateMemRead() as well.
For x86, where the access size is passed in explicitly, we can
also get rid of the data parameter at this level. For other ISAs,
where the access size is determined from the type of the data
parameter, we have to keep the parameter for that purpose.
This adds a vector register type. The type is defined as a std::array of a
fixed number of uint64_ts. The isa_parser.py has been modified to parse vector
register operands and generate the required code. Different cpus have vector
register files now.
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>
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
