*Actual* internal hardware-level parallelism is *not* required, such
that Simple-V may be viewed as providing a "compact" or "consolidated"
means of issuing multiple near-identical arithmetic instructions to an
-instruction queue (FILO), pending execution.
+instruction queue (FIFO), pending execution.
*Actual* parallelism, if added independently of Simple-V in the form
of Out-of-order restructuring (including parallel ALU lanes) or VLIW
-implementations, or SIMD, or anything else, would then benefit *if*
-Simple-V was added on top.
+implementations, or SIMD, or anything else, would then benefit from
+the uniformity of a consistent API.
+
+Talk slides: <http://hands.com/~lkcl/simple_v_chennai_2018.pdf>
[[!toc ]]
designs all pull an ISA and its implementation in different conflicting
directions, as do the specific intended uses for any given implementation.
-Additionally, the existing P (SIMD) proposal and the V (Vector) proposals,
+The existing P (SIMD) proposal and the V (Vector) proposals,
whilst each extremely powerful in their own right and clearly desirable,
are also:
analysis and review purposes) prohibitively expensive
* Both contain partial duplication of pre-existing RISC-V instructions
(an undesirable characteristic)
-* Both have independent and disparate methods for introducing parallelism
- at the instruction level.
+* Both have independent, incompatible and disparate methods for introducing
+ parallelism at the instruction level
* Both require that their respective parallelism paradigm be implemented
along-side and integral to their respective functionality *or not at all*.
* Both independently have methods for introducing parallelism that
* Vectorisation typically includes much more comprehensive memory load
and store schemes (unit stride, constant-stride and indexed), which
in turn have ramifications: virtual memory misses (TLB cache misses)
- and even multiple page-faults... all caused by a *single instruction*.
+ and even multiple page-faults... all caused by a *single instruction*,
+ yet with a clear benefit that the regularisation of LOAD/STOREs can
+ be optimised for minimal impact on caches and maximised throughput.
* By contrast, SIMD can use "standard" memory load/stores (32-bit aligned
to pages), and these load/stores have absolutely nothing to do with the
- SIMD / ALU engine, no matter how wide the operand.
+ SIMD / ALU engine, no matter how wide the operand. Simplicity but with
+ more impact on instruction and data caches.
Overall it makes a huge amount of sense to have a means and method
of introducing instruction parallelism in a flexible way that provides
SIMD again has a severe disadvantage here, over Vector: huge proliferation
of specialist instructions that target 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit, and
have to then have operations *for each and between each*. It gets very
-messy, very quickly.
+messy, very quickly: *six* separate dimensions giving an O(N^6) instruction
+proliferation profile.
The V-Extension on the other hand proposes to set the bit-width of
future instructions on a per-register basis, such that subsequent instructions
to direct the operation to a correctly-sized width ALU engine, anyway.
Not least: in places where an ISA was previously constrained (due for
-whatever reason, including limitations of the available operand spcace),
+whatever reason, including limitations of the available operand space),
implicit bit-width allows the meaning of certain operations to be
type-overloaded *without* pollution or alteration of frozen and immutable
instructions, in a fully backwards-compatible fashion.
from a single instruction. They're complicated to implement in hardware,
yet the benefits are a huge consistent regularisation of memory accesses
that can be highly optimised with respect to both actual memory and any
-L1, L2 or other caches.
+L1, L2 or other caches. In Hwacha EECS-2015-263 it is explicitly made
+clear the consequences of getting this architecturally wrong:
+L2 cache-thrashing at the very least.
Complications arise when Virtual Memory is involved: TLB cache misses
need to be dealt with, as do page faults. Some of the tradeoffs are
discussed in <http://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~krste/thesis.pdf>, Section
-4.6.
+4.6, and an article by Jeff Bush when faced with some of these issues
+is particularly enlightening
+<https://jbush001.github.io/2015/11/03/lost-in-translation.html>
+
+Interestingly, none of this complexity is faced in SIMD architectures...
+but then they do not get the opportunity to optimise for highly-streamlined
+memory accesses either.
+
+With the "bang-per-buck" ratio being so high and the indirect improvement
+in L1 Instruction Cache usage (reduced instruction count), as well as
+the opportunity to optimise L1 and L2 cache usage, the case for including
+Vector LOAD/STORE is compelling.
## Mask and Tagging (Predication)
* explicit compare and branch: BNE x, y -> offs would jump offs
instructions if x was not equal to y
* explicit store of tag condition: CMP x, y -> tagbit
-* implicit (condition-code) ADD results in a carry, carry bit implicitly
- (or sometimes explicitly) goes into a "tag" (mask) register
+* implicit (condition-code) such as ADD results in a carry, carry bit
+ implicitly (or sometimes explicitly) goes into a "tag" (mask) register
The first of these is a "normal" branch method, which is flat-out impossible
to parallelise without look-ahead and effectively rewriting instructions.
* Implicit (indirect) vs fixed (integral) instruction bit-width: <b>indirect</b>
* Implicit vs explicit type-conversion: <b>explicit</b>
* Implicit vs explicit inner loops: <b>implicit but best done separately</b>
+* Single-instruction Vector LOAD/STORE: <b>Complex but highly beneficial</b>
* Tag or no-tag: <b>Complex but highly beneficial</b>
In particular:
i.e. *without* requiring a super-scalar or out-of-order architecture,
but doing a proper, full job (ZOLC) is an entirely different matter.
-Constructing a SIMD/Simple-Vector proposal based around four of these five
+Constructing a SIMD/Simple-Vector proposal based around four of these six
requirements would therefore seem to be a logical thing to do.
-# Instruction Format
+# Note on implementation of parallelism
+
+One extremely important aspect of this proposal is to respect and support
+implementors desire to focus on power, area or performance. In that regard,
+it is proposed that implementors be free to choose whether to implement
+the Vector (or variable-width SIMD) parallelism as sequential operations
+with a single ALU, fully parallel (if practical) with multiple ALUs, or
+a hybrid combination of both.
+
+In Broadcom's Videocore-IV, they chose hybrid, and called it "Virtual
+Parallelism". They achieve a 16-way SIMD at an **instruction** level
+by providing a combination of a 4-way parallel ALU *and* an externally
+transparent loop that feeds 4 sequential sets of data into each of the
+4 ALUs.
+
+Also in the same core, it is worth noting that particularly uncommon
+but essential operations (Reciprocal-Square-Root for example) are
+*not* part of the 4-way parallel ALU but instead have a *single* ALU.
+Under the proposed Vector (varible-width SIMD) implementors would
+be free to do precisely that: i.e. free to choose *on a per operation
+basis* whether and how much "Virtual Parallelism" to deploy.
+
+It is absolutely critical to note that it is proposed that such choices MUST
+be **entirely transparent** to the end-user and the compiler. Whilst
+a Vector (varible-width SIMD) may not precisely match the width of the
+parallelism within the implementation, the end-user **should not care**
+and in this way the performance benefits are gained but the ISA remains
+straightforward. All that happens at the end of an instruction run is: some
+parallel units (if there are any) would remain offline, completely
+transparently to the ISA, the program, and the compiler.
+
+To make that clear: should an implementor choose a particularly wide
+SIMD-style ALU, each parallel unit *must* have predication so that
+the parallel SIMD ALU may emulate variable-length parallel operations.
+Thus the "SIMD considered harmful" trap of having huge complexity and extra
+instructions to deal with corner-cases is thus avoided, and implementors
+get to choose precisely where to focus and target the benefits of their
+implementation efforts, without "extra baggage".
+
+In addition, implementors will be free to choose whether to provide an
+absolute bare minimum level of compliance with the "API" (software-traps
+when vectorisation is detected), all the way up to full supercomputing
+level all-hardware parallelism. Options are covered in the Appendix.
+
+# CSRs <a name="csrs"></a>
+
+There are two CSR tables needed to create lookup tables which are used at
+the register decode phase.
+
+* Integer Register N is Vector
+* Integer Register N is of implicit bitwidth M (M=default,8,16,32,64)
+* Floating-point Register N is Vector of length M: r(N) -> r(N..N+M-1)
+* Floating-point Register N is of implicit bitwidth M (M=default,8,16,32,64)
+* Integer Register N is a Predication Register (note: a key-value store)
+
+Also (see Appendix, "Context Switch Example") it may turn out to be important
+to have a separate (smaller) set of CSRs for M-Mode (and S-Mode) so that
+Vectorised LOAD / STORE may be used to load and store multiple registers:
+something that is missing from the Base RV ISA.
+
+Notes:
+
+* for the purposes of LOAD / STORE, Integer Registers which are
+ marked as a Vector will result in a Vector LOAD / STORE.
+* Vector Lengths are *not* the same as vsetl but are an integral part
+ of vsetl.
+* Actual vector length is *multipled* by how many blocks of length
+ "bitwidth" may fit into an XLEN-sized register file.
+* Predication is a key-value store due to the implicit referencing,
+ as opposed to having the predicate register explicitly in the instruction.
+* Whilst the predication CSR is a key-value store it *generates* easier-to-use
+ state information.
+* TODO: assess whether the same technique could be applied to the other
+ Vector CSRs, particularly as pointed out in Section 17.8 (Draft RV 0.4,
+ V2.3-Draft ISA Reference) it becomes possible to greatly reduce state
+ needed for context-switches (empty slots need never be stored).
+
+## Predication CSR <a name="predication_csr_table"></a>
+
+The Predication CSR is a key-value store indicating whether, if a given
+destination register (integer or floating-point) is referred to in an
+instruction, it is to be predicated. However it is important to note
+that the *actual* register is *different* from the one that ends up
+being used, due to the level of indirection through the lookup table.
+This includes (in the future) redirecting to a *second* bank of
+integer registers (as a future option)
+
+* regidx is the actual register that in combination with the
+ i/f flag, if that integer or floating-point register is referred to,
+ results in the lookup table being referenced to find the predication
+ mask to use on the operation in which that (regidx) register has
+ been used
+* predidx (in combination with the bank bit in the future) is the
+ *actual* register to be used for the predication mask. Note:
+ in effect predidx is actually a 6-bit register address, as the bank
+ bit is the MSB (and is nominally set to zero for now).
+* inv indicates that the predication mask bits are to be inverted
+ prior to use *without* actually modifying the contents of the
+ register itself.
+* zeroing is either 1 or 0, and if set to 1, the operation must
+ place zeros in any element position where the predication mask is
+ set to zero. If zeroing is set to 1, unpredicated elements *must*
+ be left alone. Some microarchitectures may choose to interpret
+ this as skipping the operation entirely. Others which wish to
+ stick more closely to a SIMD architecture may choose instead to
+ interpret unpredicated elements as an internal "copy element"
+ operation (which would be necessary in SIMD microarchitectures
+ that perform register-renaming)
+
+| PrCSR | 13 | 12 | 11 | 10 | (9..5) | (4..0) |
+| ----- | - | - | - | - | ------- | ------- |
+| 0 | bank0 | zero0 | inv0 | i/f | regidx | predidx |
+| 1 | bank1 | zero1 | inv1 | i/f | regidx | predidx |
+| .. | bank.. | zero.. | inv.. | i/f | regidx | predidx |
+| 15 | bank15 | zero15 | inv15 | i/f | regidx | predidx |
+
+The Predication CSR Table is a key-value store, so implementation-wise
+it will be faster to turn the table around (maintain topologically
+equivalent state):
+
+ struct pred {
+ bool zero;
+ bool inv;
+ bool bank; // 0 for now, 1=rsvd
+ bool enabled;
+ int predidx; // redirection: actual int register to use
+ }
+
+ struct pred fp_pred_reg[32]; // 64 in future (bank=1)
+ struct pred int_pred_reg[32]; // 64 in future (bank=1)
+
+ for (i = 0; i < 16; i++)
+ tb = int_pred_reg if CSRpred[i].type == 0 else fp_pred_reg;
+ idx = CSRpred[i].regidx
+ tb[idx].zero = CSRpred[i].zero
+ tb[idx].inv = CSRpred[i].inv
+ tb[idx].bank = CSRpred[i].bank
+ tb[idx].predidx = CSRpred[i].predidx
+ tb[idx].enabled = true
+
+So when an operation is to be predicated, it is the internal state that
+is used. In Section 6.4.2 of Hwacha's Manual (EECS-2015-262) the following
+pseudo-code for operations is given, where p is the explicit (direct)
+reference to the predication register to be used:
+
+ for (int i=0; i<vl; ++i)
+ if ([!]preg[p][i])
+ (d ? vreg[rd][i] : sreg[rd]) =
+ iop(s1 ? vreg[rs1][i] : sreg[rs1],
+ s2 ? vreg[rs2][i] : sreg[rs2]); // for insts with 2 inputs
+
+This instead becomes an *indirect* reference using the *internal* state
+table generated from the Predication CSR key-value store, which iwws used
+as follows.
+
+ if type(iop) == INT:
+ preg = int_pred_reg[rd]
+ else:
+ preg = fp_pred_reg[rd]
+
+ for (int i=0; i<vl; ++i)
+ predidx = preg[rd].predidx; // the indirection takes place HERE
+ if (!preg[rd].enabled)
+ predicate = ~0x0; // all parallel ops enabled
+ else:
+ predicate = intregfile[predidx]; // get actual reg contents HERE
+ if (preg[rd].inv) // invert if requested
+ predicate = ~predicate;
+ if (predicate && (1<<i))
+ (d ? regfile[rd+i] : regfile[rd]) =
+ iop(s1 ? regfile[rs1+i] : regfile[rs1],
+ s2 ? regfile[rs2+i] : regfile[rs2]); // for insts with 2 inputs
+ else if (preg[rd].zero)
+ // TODO: place zero in dest reg
+
+Note:
+
+* d, s1 and s2 are booleans indicating whether destination,
+ source1 and source2 are vector or scalar
+* key-value CSR-redirection of rd, rs1 and rs2 have NOT been included
+ above, for clarity. rd, rs1 and rs2 all also must ALSO go through
+ register-level redirection (from the Register CSR table) if they are
+ vectors.
+
+If written as a function, obtaining the predication mask (but not whether
+zeroing takes place) may be done as follows:
+
+ def get_pred_val(bool is_fp_op, int reg):
+ tb = int_pred if is_fp_op else fp_pred
+ if (!tb[reg].enabled):
+ return ~0x0 // all ops enabled
+ predidx = tb[reg].predidx // redirection occurs HERE
+ predicate = intreg[predidx] // actual predicate HERE
+ if (tb[reg].inv):
+ predicate = ~predicate // invert ALL bits
+ return predicate
+
+## MAXVECTORLENGTH
+
+MAXVECTORLENGTH is the same concept as MVL in RVV. However in Simple-V,
+given that its primary (base, unextended) purpose is for 3D, Video and
+other purposes (not requiring supercomputing capability), it makes sense
+to limit MAXVECTORDEPTH to the regfile bitwidth (32 for RV32, 64 for RV64
+and so on).
+
+The reason for setting this limit is so that predication registers, when
+marked as such, may fit into a single register as opposed to fanning out
+over several registers. This keeps the implementation a little simpler.
+Note also (as also described in the VSETVL section) that the *minimum*
+for MAXVECTORDEPTH must be the total number of registers (15 for RV32E
+and 31 for RV32 or RV64).
+
+Note that RVV on top of Simple-V may choose to over-ride this decision.
+
+## Register CSR key-value (CAM) table
+
+The purpose of the Register CSR table is four-fold:
+
+* To mark integer and floating-point registers as requiring "redirection"
+ if it is ever used as a source or destination in any given operation.
+ This involves a level of indirection through a 5-to-6-bit lookup table
+ (where the 6th bit - bank - is always set to 0 for now).
+* To indicate whether, after redirection through the lookup table, the
+ register is a vector (or remains a scalar).
+* To over-ride the implicit or explicit bitwidth that the operation would
+ normally give the register.
+* To indicate if the register is to be interpreted as "packed" (SIMD)
+ i.e. containing multiple contiguous elements of size equal to "bitwidth".
+
+| RgCSR | 15 | 14 | 13 | (12..11) | 10 | (9..5) | (4..0) |
+| ----- | - | - | - | - | - | ------- | ------- |
+| 0 | simd0 | bank0 | isvec0 | vew0 | i/f | regidx | predidx |
+| 1 | simd1 | bank1 | isvec1 | vew1 | i/f | regidx | predidx |
+| .. | simd.. | bank.. | isvec.. | vew.. | i/f | regidx | predidx |
+| 15 | simd15 | bank15 | isvec15 | vew15 | i/f | regidx | predidx |
+
+vew may be one of the following (giving a table "bytestable", used below):
+
+| vew | bitwidth |
+| --- | --------- |
+| 00 | default |
+| 01 | default/2 |
+| 10 | 8 |
+| 11 | 16 |
+
+Extending this table (with extra bits) is covered in the section
+"Implementing RVV on top of Simple-V".
+
+As the above table is a CAM (key-value store) it may be appropriate
+to expand it as follows:
+
+ struct vectorised fp_vec[32], int_vec[32]; // 64 in future
+
+ for (i = 0; i < 16; i++) // 16 CSRs?
+ tb = int_vec if CSRvec[i].type == 0 else fp_vec
+ idx = CSRvec[i].regkey // INT/FP src/dst reg in opcode
+ tb[idx].elwidth = CSRvec[i].elwidth
+ tb[idx].regidx = CSRvec[i].regidx // indirection
+ tb[idx].isvector = CSRvec[i].isvector // 0=scalar
+ tb[idx].packed = CSRvec[i].packed // SIMD or not
+ tb[idx].bank = CSRvec[i].bank // 0 (1=rsvd)
-The instruction format for Simple-V does not actually have *any* compare
-operations, *any* arithmetic, floating point or memory instructions.
+TODO: move elsewhere
+
+ # TODO: use elsewhere (retire for now)
+ vew = CSRbitwidth[rs1]
+ if (vew == 0)
+ bytesperreg = (XLEN/8) # or FLEN as appropriate
+ elif (vew == 1)
+ bytesperreg = (XLEN/4) # or FLEN/2 as appropriate
+ else:
+ bytesperreg = bytestable[vew] # 8 or 16
+ simdmult = (XLEN/8) / bytesperreg # or FLEN as appropriate
+ vlen = CSRvectorlen[rs1] * simdmult
+ CSRvlength = MIN(MIN(vlen, MAXVECTORDEPTH), rs2)
+
+The reason for multiplying the vector length by the number of SIMD elements
+(in each individual register) is so that each SIMD element may optionally be
+predicated.
+
+An example of how to subdivide the register file when bitwidth != default
+is given in the section "Bitwidth Virtual Register Reordering".
+
+# Instructions
+
+Despite being a 98% complete and accurate topological remap of RVV
+concepts and functionality, the only instructions needed are VSETVL
+and VGETVL. *All* RVV instructions can be re-mapped, however xBitManip
+becomes a critical dependency for efficient manipulation of predication
+masks (as a bit-field). Despite the removal of all but VSETVL and VGETVL,
+*all instructions from RVV are topologically re-mapped and retain their
+complete functionality, intact*.
+
+Three instructions, VSELECT, VCLIP and VCLIPI, do not have RV Standard
+equivalents, so are left out of Simple-V. VSELECT could be included if
+there existed a MV.X instruction in RV (MV.X is a hypothetical
+non-immediate variant of MV that would allow another register to
+specify which register was to be copied). Note that if any of these three
+instructions are added to any given RV extension, their functionality
+will be inherently parallelised.
+
+## Instruction Format
+
+The instruction format for Simple-V does not actually have *any* explicit
+compare operations, *any* arithmetic, floating point or *any*
+memory instructions.
Instead it *overloads* pre-existing branch operations into predicated
-variants, and implicitly overloads arithmetic operations and LOAD/STORE
-depending on implicit CSR configurations for both vector length and
-bitwidth. This includes Compressed instructions.
+variants, and implicitly overloads arithmetic operations, MV,
+FCVT, and LOAD/STORE
+depending on CSR configurations for bitwidth and
+predication. **Everything** becomes parallelised. *This includes
+Compressed instructions* as well as any
+future instructions and Custom Extensions.
* For analysis of RVV see [[v_comparative_analysis]] which begins to
outline topologically-equivalent mappings of instructions
with some opportunities for to use Compressed bringing it down to 48.
Also to consider is whether one or both of the last two remaining Compressed
instruction codes in Quadrant 1 could be used as a parallelism prefix,
-bringing parallelised opcodes down to 32-bit and having the benefit of
-being explicit.*
+bringing parallelised opcodes down to 32-bit (when combined with C)
+and having the benefit of being explicit.*
+
+## VSETVL
+
+NOTE TODO: 28may2018: VSETVL may need to be *really* different from RVV,
+with the instruction format remaining the same.
+
+VSETVL is slightly different from RVV in that the minimum vector length
+is required to be at least the number of registers in the register file,
+and no more than XLEN. This allows vector LOAD/STORE to be used to switch
+the entire bank of registers using a single instruction (see Appendix,
+"Context Switch Example"). The reason for limiting VSETVL to XLEN is
+down to the fact that predication bits fit into a single register of length
+XLEN bits.
+
+The second change is that when VSETVL is requested to be stored
+into x0, it is *ignored* silently (VSETVL x0, x5, #4)
+
+The third change is that there is an additional immediate added to VSETVL,
+to which VL is set after first going through MIN-filtering.
+So When using the "vsetl rs1, rs2, #vlen" instruction, it becomes:
+
+ VL = MIN(MIN(vlen, MAXVECTORDEPTH), rs2)
+
+where RegfileLen <= MAXVECTORDEPTH < XLEN
+
+This has implication for the microarchitecture, as VL is required to be
+set (limits from MAXVECTORDEPTH notwithstanding) to the actual value
+requested in the #immediate parameter. RVV has the option to set VL
+to an arbitrary value that suits the conditions and the micro-architecture:
+SV does *not* permit that.
+
+The reason is so that if SV is to be used for a context-switch or as a
+substitute for LOAD/STORE-Multiple, the operation can be done with only
+2-3 instructions (setup of the CSRs, VSETVL x0, x0, #{regfilelen-1},
+single LD/ST operation). If VL does *not* get set to the register file
+length when VSETVL is called, then a software-loop would be needed.
+To avoid this need, VL *must* be set to exactly what is requested
+(limits notwithstanding).
+
+Therefore, in turn, unlike RVV, implementors *must* provide
+pseudo-parallelism (using sequential loops in hardware) if actual
+hardware-parallelism in the ALUs is not deployed. A hybrid is also
+permitted (as used in Broadcom's VideoCore-IV) however this must be
+*entirely* transparent to the ISA.
## Branch Instruction:
+Branch operations use standard RV opcodes that are reinterpreted to
+be "predicate variants" in the instance where either of the two src
+registers are marked as vectors (isvector=1). When this reinterpretation
+is enabled the "immediate" field of the branch operation is taken to be a
+predication target register, rs3. The predicate target register rs3 is
+to be treated as a bitfield (up to a maximum of XLEN bits corresponding
+to a maximum of XLEN elements).
+
+If either of src1 or src2 are scalars (CSRvectorlen[src] == 0) the comparison
+goes ahead as vector-scalar or scalar-vector. Implementors should note that
+this could require considerable multi-porting of the register file in order
+to parallelise properly, so may have to involve the use of register cacheing
+and transparent copying (see Multiple-Banked Register File Architectures
+paper).
+
+In instances where no vectorisation is detected on either src registers
+the operation is treated as an absolutely standard scalar branch operation.
+
+This is the overloaded table for Integer-base Branch operations. Opcode
+(bits 6..0) is set in all cases to 1100011.
+
[[!table data="""
-31 | 30 .. 25 |24 ... 20 | 19 15 | 14 12 | 11 .. 8 | 7 | 6 ... 0 |
-imm[12] | imm[10:5]| rs2 | rs1 | funct3 | imm[4:1] | imm[11] | opcode |
-1 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 7 |
-I/F | reserved | src2 | src1 | BPR | predicate rs3 || BRANCH |
-0 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 000 | predicate rs3 || BEQ |
-0 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 001 | predicate rs3 || BNE |
-0 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 010 | predicate rs3 || rsvd |
-0 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 011 | predicate rs3 || rsvd |
-0 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 100 | predicate rs3 || BLE |
-0 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 101 | predicate rs3 || BGE |
-0 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 110 | predicate rs3 || BLTU |
-0 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 111 | predicate rs3 || BGEU |
-1 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 000 | predicate rs3 || FEQ |
-1 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 001 | predicate rs3 || FNE |
-1 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 010 | predicate rs3 || rsvd |
-1 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 011 | predicate rs3 || rsvd |
-1 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 100 | predicate rs3 || FLT |
-1 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 101 | predicate rs3 || FLE |
-1 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 110 | predicate rs3 || rsvd |
-1 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 111 | predicate rs3 || rsvd |
+31 .. 25 |24 ... 20 | 19 15 | 14 12 | 11 .. 8 | 7 | 6 ... 0 |
+imm[12,10:5]| rs2 | rs1 | funct3 | imm[4:1] | imm[11] | opcode |
+7 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 7 |
+reserved | src2 | src1 | BPR | predicate rs3 || BRANCH |
+reserved | src2 | src1 | 000 | predicate rs3 || BEQ |
+reserved | src2 | src1 | 001 | predicate rs3 || BNE |
+reserved | src2 | src1 | 010 | predicate rs3 || rsvd |
+reserved | src2 | src1 | 011 | predicate rs3 || rsvd |
+reserved | src2 | src1 | 100 | predicate rs3 || BLE |
+reserved | src2 | src1 | 101 | predicate rs3 || BGE |
+reserved | src2 | src1 | 110 | predicate rs3 || BLTU |
+reserved | src2 | src1 | 111 | predicate rs3 || BGEU |
+"""]]
+
+Note that just as with the standard (scalar, non-predicated) branch
+operations, BLT, BGT, BLEU and BTGU may be synthesised by inverting
+src1 and src2.
+
+Below is the overloaded table for Floating-point Predication operations.
+Interestingly no change is needed to the instruction format because
+FP Compare already stores a 1 or a zero in its "rd" integer register
+target, i.e. it's not actually a Branch at all: it's a compare.
+The target needs to simply change to be a predication bitfield (done
+implicitly).
+
+As with
+Standard RVF/D/Q, Opcode (bits 6..0) is set in all cases to 1010011.
+Likewise Single-precision, fmt bits 26..25) is still set to 00.
+Double-precision is still set to 01, whilst Quad-precision
+appears not to have a definition in V2.3-Draft (but should be unaffected).
+
+It is however noted that an entry "FNE" (the opposite of FEQ) is missing,
+and whilst in ordinary branch code this is fine because the standard
+RVF compare can always be followed up with an integer BEQ or a BNE (or
+a compressed comparison to zero or non-zero), in predication terms that
+becomes more of an impact. To deal with this, SV's predication has
+had "invert" added to it.
+
+[[!table data="""
+31 .. 27| 26 .. 25 |24 ... 20 | 19 15 | 14 12 | 11 .. 7 | 6 ... 0 |
+funct5 | fmt | rs2 | rs1 | funct3 | rd | opcode |
+5 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 7 |
+10100 | 00/01/11 | src2 | src1 | 010 | pred rs3 | FEQ |
+10100 | 00/01/11 | src2 | src1 | **011**| pred rs3 | rsvd |
+10100 | 00/01/11 | src2 | src1 | 001 | pred rs3 | FLT |
+10100 | 00/01/11 | src2 | src1 | 000 | pred rs3 | FLE |
"""]]
+Note (**TBD**): floating-point exceptions will need to be extended
+to cater for multiple exceptions (and statuses of the same). The
+usual approach is to have an array of status codes and bit-fields,
+and one exception, rather than throw separate exceptions for each
+Vector element.
+
In Hwacha EECS-2015-262 Section 6.7.2 the following pseudocode is given
for predicated compare operations of function "cmp":
complex), this becomes:
if I/F == INT: # integer type cmp
- pred_enabled = int_pred_enabled # TODO: exception if not set!
preg = int_pred_reg[rd]
+ reg = int_regfile
else:
- pred_enabled = fp_pred_enabled # TODO: exception if not set!
preg = fp_pred_reg[rd]
+ reg = fp_regfile
- s1 = CSRvectorlen[src1] > 1;
- s2 = CSRvectorlen[src2] > 1;
- for (int i=0; i<vl; ++i)
- preg[rs3][i] = cmp(s1 ? reg[src1+i] : reg[src1],
- s2 ? reg[src2+i] : reg[src2]);
+ s1 = reg_is_vectorised(src1);
+ s2 = reg_is_vectorised(src2);
+ if (!s2 && !s1) goto branch;
+ for (int i = 0; i < VL; ++i)
+ if (cmp(s1 ? reg[src1+i]:reg[src1],
+ s2 ? reg[src2+i]:reg[src2])
+ preg[rs3] |= 1<<i; # bitfield not vector
Notes:
* Predicated SIMD comparisons would break src1 and src2 further down
into bitwidth-sized chunks (see Appendix "Bitwidth Virtual Register
- Reordering") setting Vector-Length * (number of SIMD elements) bits
+ Reordering") setting Vector-Length times (number of SIMD elements) bits
in Predicate Register rs3 as opposed to just Vector-Length bits.
* Predicated Branches do not actually have an adjustment to the Program
Counter, so all of bits 25 through 30 in every case are not needed.
* There are plenty of reserved opcodes for which bits 25 through 30 could
be put to good use if there is a suitable use-case.
-* FEQ and FNE (and BEQ and BNE) are included in order to save one
- instruction having to invert the resultant predicate bitfield.
FLT and FLE may be inverted to FGT and FGE if needed by swapping
src1 and src2 (likewise the integer counterparts).
## Compressed Branch Instruction:
+Compressed Branch instructions are likewise re-interpreted as predicated
+2-register operations, with the result going into rs3. All the bits of
+the immediate are re-interpreted for different purposes, to extend the
+number of comparator operations to beyond the original specification,
+but also to cater for floating-point comparisons as well as integer ones.
+
[[!table data="""
15..13 | 12...10 | 9..7 | 6..5 | 4..2 | 1..0 | name |
funct3 | imm | rs10 | imm | | op | |
Notes:
* Bits 5 13 14 and 15 make up the comparator type
+* Bit 6 indicates whether to use integer or floating-point comparisons
* In both floating-point and integer cases there are four predication
comparators: EQ/NEQ/LT/LE (with GT and GE being synthesised by inverting
src1 and src2).
-## LOAD / STORE Instructions
+## LOAD / STORE Instructions <a name="load_store"></a>
For full analysis of topological adaptation of RVV LOAD/STORE
see [[v_comparative_analysis]]. All three types (LD, LD.S and LD.X)
-may be implicitly overloaded into the one base RV LOAD instruction.
+may be implicitly overloaded into the one base RV LOAD instruction,
+and likewise for STORE.
Revised LOAD:
* **TODO**: include CSR SIMD bitwidth in the pseudo-code below.
* **TODO**: clarify where width maps to elsize
-Pseudo-code (excludes CSR SIMD bitwidth):
+Pseudo-code (excludes CSR SIMD bitwidth for simplicity):
if (unit-strided) stride = elsize;
else stride = areg[as2]; // constant-strided
- pred_enabled = int_pred_enabled
preg = int_pred_reg[rd]
for (int i=0; i<vl; ++i)
- if (preg_enabled[rd] && [!]preg[i])
+ if ([!]preg[rd] & 1<<i)
for (int j=0; j<seglen+1; j++)
{
if CSRvectorised[rs2])
- offs = vreg[rs2][i]
+ offs = vreg[rs2+i]
else
offs = i*(seglen+1)*stride;
vreg[rd+j][i] = mem[sreg[base] + offs + j*stride];
in physical memory and some not". The interesting question then arises:
how does RVV deal with the exact same scenario?
Expired U.S. Patent 5895501 (Filing Date Sep 3 1996) describes a method
-of detecting early page / segmentation faults.
+of detecting early page / segmentation faults and adjusting the TLB
+in advance, accordingly: other strategies are explored in the Appendix
+Section "Virtual Memory Page Faults".
-# Note on implementation of parallelism
+## Vectorised Copy/Move (and conversion) instructions
-One extremely important aspect of this proposal is to respect and support
-implementors desire to focus on power, area or performance. In that regard,
-it is proposed that implementors be free to choose whether to implement
-the Vector (or variable-width SIMD) parallelism as sequential operations
-with a single ALU, fully parallel (if practical) with multiple ALUs, or
-a hybrid combination of both.
+There is a series of 2-operand instructions involving copying (and
+alteration): C.MV, FMV, FNEG, FABS, FCVT, FSGNJ. These operations all
+follow the same pattern, as it is *both* the source *and* destination
+predication masks that are taken into account. This is different from
+the three-operand arithmetic instructions, where the predication mask
+is taken from the *destination* register, and applied uniformly to the
+elements of the source register(s), element-for-element.
-In Broadcom's Videocore-IV, they chose hybrid, and called it "Virtual
-Parallelism". They achieve a 16-way SIMD at an **instruction** level
-by providing a combination of a 4-way parallel ALU *and* an externally
-transparent loop that feeds 4 sequential sets of data into each of the
-4 ALUs.
+### C.MV Instruction <a name="c_mv"></a>
-Also in the same core, it is worth noting that particularly uncommon
-but essential operations (Reciprocal-Square-Root for example) are
-*not* part of the 4-way parallel ALU but instead have a *single* ALU.
-Under the proposed Vector (varible-width SIMD) implementors would
-be free to do precisely that: i.e. free to choose *on a per operation
-basis* whether and how much "Virtual Parallelism" to deploy.
+There is no MV instruction in RV however there is a C.MV instruction.
+It is used for copying integer-to-integer registers (vectorised FMV
+is used for copying floating-point).
-It is absolutely critical to note that it is proposed that such choices MUST
-be **entirely transparent** to the end-user and the compiler. Whilst
-a Vector (varible-width SIM) may not precisely match the width of the
-parallelism within the implementation, the end-user **should not care**
-and in this way the performance benefits are gained but the ISA remains
-straightforward. All that happens at the end of an instruction run is: some
-parallel units (if there are any) would remain offline, completely
-transparently to the ISA, the program, and the compiler.
+If either the source or the destination register are marked as vectors
+C.MV is reinterpreted to be a vectorised (multi-register) predicated
+move operation. The actual instruction's format does not change:
-The "SIMD considered harmful" trap of having huge complexity and extra
-instructions to deal with corner-cases is thus avoided, and implementors
-get to choose precisely where to focus and target the benefits of their
-implementation efforts, without "extra baggage".
+[[!table data="""
+15 12 | 11 7 | 6 2 | 1 0 |
+funct4 | rd | rs | op |
+4 | 5 | 5 | 2 |
+C.MV | dest | src | C0 |
+"""]]
-# CSRs <a name="csrs"></a>
+A simplified version of the pseudocode for this operation is as follows:
-There are a number of CSRs needed, which are used at the instruction
-decode phase to re-interpret standard RV opcodes (a practice that has
-precedent in the setting of MISA to enable / disable extensions).
+ function op_mv(rd, rs) # MV not VMV!
+ rd = int_vec[rd].isvector ? int_vec[rd].regidx : rd;
+ rs = int_vec[rs].isvector ? int_vec[rs].regidx : rs;
+ ps = get_pred_val(FALSE, rs); # predication on src
+ pd = get_pred_val(FALSE, rd); # ... AND on dest
+ for (int i = 0, int j = 0; i < VL && j < VL;):
+ if (int_vec[rs].isvec) while (!(ps & 1<<i)) i++;
+ if (int_vec[rd].isvec) while (!(pd & 1<<j)) j++;
+ ireg[rd+j] <= ireg[rs+i];
+ if (int_vec[rs].isvec) i++;
+ if (int_vec[rd].isvec) j++;
-* Integer Register N is Vector of length M: r(N) -> r(N..N+M-1)
-* Integer Register N is of implicit bitwidth M (M=default,8,16,32,64)
-* Floating-point Register N is Vector of length M: r(N) -> r(N..N+M-1)
-* Floating-point Register N is of implicit bitwidth M (M=default,8,16,32,64)
-* Integer Register N is a Predication Register (note: a key-value store)
-* Vector Length CSR (VSETVL, VGETVL)
+Note that:
-Notes:
+* elwidth (SIMD) is not covered above
+* ending the loop early in scalar cases (VINSERT, VEXTRACT) is also
+ not covered
-* for the purposes of LOAD / STORE, Integer Registers which are
- marked as a Vector will result in a Vector LOAD / STORE.
-* Vector Lengths are *not* the same as vsetl but are an integral part
- of vsetl.
-* Actual vector length is *multipled* by how many blocks of length
- "bitwidth" may fit into an XLEN-sized register file.
-* Predication is a key-value store due to the implicit referencing,
- as opposed to having the predicate register explicitly in the instruction.
+There are several different instructions from RVV that are covered by
+this one opcode:
-## Predication CSR
+[[!table data="""
+src | dest | predication | op |
+scalar | vector | none | VSPLAT |
+scalar | vector | destination | sparse VSPLAT |
+scalar | vector | 1-bit dest | VINSERT |
+vector | scalar | 1-bit? src | VEXTRACT |
+vector | vector | none | VCOPY |
+vector | vector | src | Vector Gather |
+vector | vector | dest | Vector Scatter |
+vector | vector | src & dest | Gather/Scatter |
+vector | vector | src == dest | sparse VCOPY |
+"""]]
-The Predication CSR is a key-value store indicating whether, if a given
-destination register (integer or floating-point) is referred to in an
-instruction, it is to be predicated. The first entry is whether predication
-is enabled. The second entry is whether the register index refers to a
-floating-point or an integer register. The third entry is the index
-of that register which is to be predicated (if referred to). The fourth entry
-is the integer register that is treated as a bitfield, indexable by the
-vector element index.
-
-| RegNo | 6 | 5 | (4..0) | (4..0) |
-| ----- | - | - | ------- | ------- |
-| r0 | pren0 | i/f | regidx | predidx |
-| r1 | pren1 | i/f | regidx | predidx |
-| .. | pren.. | i/f | regidx | predidx |
-| r15 | pren15 | i/f | regidx | predidx |
+Also, VMERGE may be implemented as back-to-back (macro-op fused) C.MV
+operations with inversion on the src and dest predication for one of the
+two C.MV operations.
-The Predication CSR Table is a key-value store, so implementation-wise
-it will be faster to turn the table around (maintain topologically
-equivalent state):
+Note that in the instance where the Compressed Extension is not implemented,
+MV may be used, but that is a pseudo-operation mapping to addi rd, x0, rs.
+Note that the behaviour is **different** from C.MV because with addi the
+predication mask to use is taken **only** from rd and is applied against
+all elements: rs[i] = rd[i].
- fp_pred_enabled[32];
- int_pred_enabled[32];
- for (i = 0; i < 16; i++)
- if CSRpred[i].pren:
- idx = CSRpred[i].regidx
- predidx = CSRpred[i].predidx
- if CSRpred[i].type == 0: # integer
- int_pred_enabled[idx] = 1
- int_pred_reg[idx] = predidx
- else:
- fp_pred_enabled[idx] = 1
- fp_pred_reg[idx] = predidx
+### FMV, FNEG and FABS Instructions
-So when an operation is to be predicated, it is the internal state that
-is used. In Section 6.4.2 of Hwacha's Manual (EECS-2015-262) the following
-pseudo-code for operations is given, where p is the explicit (direct)
-reference to the predication register to be used:
+These are identical in form to C.MV, except covering floating-point
+register copying. The same double-predication rules also apply.
+However when elwidth is not set to default the instruction is implicitly
+and automatic converted to a (vectorised) floating-point type conversion
+operation of the appropriate size covering the source and destination
+register bitwidths.
- for (int i=0; i<vl; ++i)
- if ([!]preg[p][i])
- (d ? vreg[rd][i] : sreg[rd]) =
- iop(s1 ? vreg[rs1][i] : sreg[rs1],
- s2 ? vreg[rs2][i] : sreg[rs2]); // for insts with 2 inputs
+(Note that FMV, FNEG and FABS are all actually pseudo-instructions)
-This instead becomes an *indirect* reference using the *internal* state
-table generated from the Predication CSR key-value store:
+### FVCT Instructions
- if type(iop) == INT:
- pred_enabled = int_pred_enabled
- preg = int_pred_reg[rd]
- else:
- pred_enabled = fp_pred_enabled
- preg = fp_pred_reg[rd]
+These are again identical in form to C.MV, except that they cover
+floating-point to integer and integer to floating-point. When element
+width in each vector is set to default, the instructions behave exactly
+as they are defined for standard RV (scalar) operations, except vectorised
+in exactly the same fashion as outlined in C.MV.
- for (int i=0; i<vl; ++i)
- if (preg_enabled[rd] && [!]preg[i])
- (d ? vreg[rd][i] : sreg[rd]) =
- iop(s1 ? vreg[rs1][i] : sreg[rs1],
- s2 ? vreg[rs2][i] : sreg[rs2]); // for insts with 2 inputs
+However when the source or destination element width is not set to default,
+the opcode's explicit element widths are *over-ridden* to new definitions,
+and the opcode's element width is taken as indicative of the SIMD width
+(if applicable i.e. if packed SIMD is requested) instead.
-## MAXVECTORDEPTH
+For example FCVT.S.L would normally be used to convert a 64-bit
+integer in register rs1 to a 64-bit floating-point number in rd.
+If however the source rs1 is set to be a vector, where elwidth is set to
+default/2 and "packed SIMD" is enabled, then the first 32 bits of
+rs1 are converted to a floating-point number to be stored in rd's
+first element and the higher 32-bits *also* converted to floating-point
+and stored in the second. The 32 bit size comes from the fact that
+FCVT.S.L's integer width is 64 bit, and with elwidth on rs1 set to
+divide that by two it means that rs1 element width is to be taken as 32.
-MAXVECTORDEPTH is the same concept as MVL in RVV. However in Simple-V,
-given that its primary (base, unextended) purpose is for 3D, Video and
-other purposes (not requiring supercomputing capability), it makes sense
-to limit MAXVECTORDEPTH to the regfile bitwidth (32 for RV32, 64 for RV64
-and so on).
+Similar rules apply to the destination register.
-The reason for setting this limit is so that predication registers, when
-marked as such, may fit into a single register as opposed to fanning out
-over several registers. This keeps the implementation a little simpler.
-Note that RVV on top of Simple-V may choose to over-ride this decision.
+# Exceptions
-## Vector-length CSRs
+> What does an ADD of two different-sized vectors do in simple-V?
-Vector lengths are interpreted as meaning "any instruction referring to
-r(N) generates implicit identical instructions referring to registers
-r(N+M-1) where M is the Vector Length". Vector Lengths may be set to
-use up to 16 registers in the register file.
+* if the two source operands are not the same, throw an exception.
+* if the destination operand is also a vector, and the source is longer
+ than the destination, throw an exception.
-One separate CSR table is needed for each of the integer and floating-point
-register files:
+> And what about instructions like JALR?
+> What does jumping to a vector do?
-| RegNo | (3..0) |
-| ----- | ------ |
-| r0 | vlen0 |
-| r1 | vlen1 |
-| .. | vlen.. |
-| r31 | vlen31 |
+* Throw an exception. Whether that actually results in spawning threads
+ as part of the trap-handling remains to be seen.
-An array of 32 4-bit CSRs is needed (4 bits per register) to indicate
-whether a register was, if referred to in any standard instructions,
-implicitly to be treated as a vector. A vector length of 1 indicates
-that it is to be treated as a scalar. Vector lengths of 0 are reserved.
+# Under consideration <a name="issues"></a>
-Internally, implementations may choose to use the non-zero vector length
-to set a bit-field per register, to be used in the instruction decode phase.
-In this way any standard (current or future) operation involving
-register operands may detect if the operation is to be vector-vector,
-vector-scalar or scalar-scalar (standard) simply through a single
-bit test.
+From the Chennai 2018 slides the following issues were raised.
+Efforts to analyse and answer these questions are below.
+
+* Should future extra bank be included now?
+* How many Register and Predication CSRs should there be?
+ (and how many in RV32E)
+* How many in M-Mode (for doing context-switch)?
+* Should use of registers be allowed to "wrap" (x30 x31 x1 x2)?
+* Can CLIP be done as a CSR (mode, like elwidth)
+* SIMD saturation (etc.) also set as a mode?
+* Include src1/src2 predication on Comparison Ops?
+ (same arrangement as C.MV, with same flexibility/power)
+* 8/16-bit ops is it worthwhile adding a "start offset"?
+ (a bit like misaligned addressing... for registers)
+ or just use predication to skip start?
-Note that when using the "vsetl rs1, rs2" instruction (caveat: when the
-bitwidth is specifically not set) it becomes:
+## Future (extra) bank be included (made mandatory)
- CSRvlength = MIN(MIN(CSRvectorlen[rs1], MAXVECTORDEPTH), rs2)
+The implications of expanding the *standard* register file from
+32 entries per bank to 64 per bank is quite an extensive architectural
+change. Also it has implications for context-switching.
-This is in contrast to RVV:
+Therefore, on balance, it is not recommended and certainly should
+not be made a *mandatory* requirement for the use of SV. SV's design
+ethos is to be minimally-disruptive for implementors to shoe-horn
+into an existing design.
- CSRvlength = MIN(MIN(rs1, MAXVECTORDEPTH), rs2)
+## How large should the Register and Predication CSR key-value stores be?
-## Element (SIMD) bitwidth CSRs
+This is something that definitely needs actual evaluation and for
+code to be run and the results analysed. At the time of writing
+(12jul2018) that is too early to tell. An approximate best-guess
+however would be 16 entries.
-Element bitwidths may be specified with a per-register CSR, and indicate
-how a register (integer or floating-point) is to be subdivided.
+RV32E however is a special case, given that it is highly unlikely
+(but not outside the realm of possibility) that it would be used
+for performance reasons but instead for reducing instruction count.
+The number of CSR entries therefore has to be considered extremely
+carefully.
-| RegNo | (2..0) |
-| ----- | ------ |
-| r0 | vew0 |
-| r1 | vew1 |
-| .. | vew.. |
-| r31 | vew31 |
+## How many CSR entries in M-Mode or S-Mode (for context-switching)?
-vew may be one of the following (giving a table "bytestable", used below):
+The minimum required CSR entries would be 1 for each register-bank:
+one for integer and one for floating-point. However, as shown
+in the "Context Switch Example" section, for optimal efficiency
+(minimal instructions in a low-latency situation) the CSRs for
+the context-switch should be set up *and left alone*.
-| vew | bitwidth |
-| --- | -------- |
-| 000 | default |
-| 001 | 8 |
-| 010 | 16 |
-| 011 | 32 |
-| 100 | 64 |
-| 101 | 128 |
-| 110 | rsvd |
-| 111 | rsvd |
+This means that it is not really a good idea to touch the CSRs
+used for context-switching in the M-Mode (or S-Mode) trap, so
+if there is ever demonstrated a need for vectors then there would
+need to be *at least* one more free. However just one does not make
+much sense (as it one only covers scalar-vector ops) so it is more
+likely that at least two extra would be needed.
-Extending this table (with extra bits) is covered in the section
-"Implementing RVV on top of Simple-V".
+This *in addition* - in the RV32E case - if an RV32E implementation
+happens also to support U/S/M modes. This would be considered quite
+rare but not outside of the realm of possibility.
-Note that when using the "vsetl rs1, rs2" instruction, taking bitwidth
-into account, it becomes:
+Conclusion: all needs careful analysis and future work.
- vew = CSRbitwidth[rs1]
- if (vew == 0)
- bytesperreg = (XLEN/8) # or FLEN as appropriate
- else:
- bytesperreg = bytestable[vew] # 1 2 4 8 16
- simdmult = (XLEN/8) / bytesperreg # or FLEN as appropriate
- vlen = CSRvectorlen[rs1] * simdmult
- CSRvlength = MIN(MIN(vlen, MAXVECTORDEPTH), rs2)
+## Should use of registers be allowed to "wrap" (x30 x31 x1 x2)?
-The reason for multiplying the vector length by the number of SIMD elements
-(in each individual register) is so that each SIMD element may optionally be
-predicated.
+On balance it's a neat idea however it does seem to be one where the
+benefits are not really clear. It would however obviate the need for
+an exception to be raised if the VL runs out of registers to put
+things in (gets to x31, tries a non-existent x32 and fails), however
+the "fly in the ointment" is that x0 is hard-coded to "zero". The
+increment therefore would need to be double-stepped to skip over x0.
+Some microarchitectures could run into difficulties (SIMD-like ones
+in particular) so it needs a lot more thought.
-An example of how to subdivide the register file when bitwidth != default
-is given in the section "Bitwidth Virtual Register Reordering".
+## Can CLIP be done as a CSR (mode, like elwidth)
-# Exceptions
+RVV appears to be going this way. At the time of writing (12jun2018)
+it's noted that in V2.3-Draft V0.4 RVV Chapter, RVV intends to do
+clip by way of exactly this method: setting a "clip mode" in a CSR.
-> What does an ADD of two different-sized vectors do in simple-V?
+No details are given however the most sensible thing to have would be
+to extend the 16-bit Register CSR table to 24-bit (or 32-bit) and have
+extra bits specifying the type of clipping to be carried out, on
+a per-register basis. Other bits may be used for other purposes
+(see SIMD saturation below)
-* if the two source operands are not the same, throw an exception.
-* if the destination operand is also a vector, and the source is longer
- than the destination, throw an exception.
+## SIMD saturation (etc.) also set as a mode?
-> And what about instructions like JALR?
-> What does jumping to a vector do?
+Similar to "CLIP" as an extension to the CSR key-value store, "saturate"
+may also need extra details (what the saturation maximum is for example).
-* Throw an exception. Whether that actually results in spawning threads
- as part of the trap-handling remains to be seen.
+## Include src1/src2 predication on Comparison Ops?
+
+In the C.MV (and other ops - see "C.MV Instruction"), the decision
+was taken, unlike in ADD (etc.) which are 3-operand ops, to use
+*both* the src *and* dest predication masks to give an extremely
+powerful and flexible instruction that covers a huge number of
+"traditional" vector opcodes.
+
+The natural question therefore to ask is: where else could this
+flexibility be deployed? What about comparison operations?
+
+Unfortunately, C.MV is basically "regs[dest] = regs[src]" whilst
+predicated comparison operations are actually a *three* operand
+instruction:
+
+ regs[pred] |= 1<< (cmp(regs[src1], regs[src2]) ? 1 : 0)
+
+Therefore at first glance it does not make sense to use src1 and src2
+predication masks, as it breaks the rule of 3-operand instructions
+to use the *destination* predication register.
+
+In this case however, the destination *is* a predication register
+as opposed to being a predication mask that is applied *to* the
+(vectorised) operation, element-at-a-time on src1 and src2.
+
+Thus the question is directly inter-related to whether the modification
+of the predication mask should *itself* be predicated.
+
+It is quite complex, in other words, and needs careful consideration.
+
+## 8/16-bit ops is it worthwhile adding a "start offset"?
+
+The idea here is to make it possible, particularly in a "Packed SIMD"
+case, to be able to avoid doing unaligned Load/Store operations
+by specifying that operations, instead of being carried out
+element-for-element, are offset by a fixed amount *even* in 8 and 16-bit
+element Packed SIMD cases.
+
+For example rather than take 2 32-bit registers divided into 4 8-bit
+elements and have them ADDed element-for-element as follows:
+
+ r3[0] = add r4[0], r6[0]
+ r3[1] = add r4[1], r6[1]
+ r3[2] = add r4[2], r6[2]
+ r3[3] = add r4[3], r6[3]
+
+an offset of 1 would result in four operations as follows, instead:
+
+ r3[0] = add r4[1], r6[0]
+ r3[1] = add r4[2], r6[1]
+ r3[2] = add r4[3], r6[2]
+ r3[3] = add r5[0], r6[3]
+
+In non-packed-SIMD mode there is no benefit at all, as a vector may
+be created using a different CSR that has the offset built-in. So this
+leaves just the packed-SIMD case to consider.
+
+Two ways in which this could be implemented / emulated (without special
+hardware):
+
+* bit-manipulation that shuffles the data along by one byte (or one word)
+ either prior to or as part of the operation requiring the offset.
+* just use an unaligned Load/Store sequence, even if there are performance
+ penalties for doing so.
+
+The question then is whether the performance hit is worth the extra hardware
+involving byte-shuffling/shifting the data by an arbitrary offset. On
+balance given that there are two reasonable instruction-based options, the
+hardware-offset option should be left out for the initial version of SV,
+with the option to consider it in an "advanced" version of the specification.
# Impementing V on top of Simple-V
-* Number of Offset CSRs extends from 2
-* Extra register file: vector-file
-* Setup of Vector length and bitwidth CSRs now can specify vector-file
- as well as integer or float file.
-* Extend CSR tables (bitwidth) with extra bits
-* TODO
+With Simple-V converting the original RVV draft concept-for-concept
+from explicit opcodes to implicit overloading of existing RV Standard
+Extensions, certain features were (deliberately) excluded that need
+to be added back in for RVV to reach its full potential. This is
+made slightly complicated by the fact that RVV itself has two
+levels: Base and reserved future functionality.
+
+* Representation Encoding is entirely left out of Simple-V in favour of
+ implicitly taking the exact (explicit) meaning from RV Standard Extensions.
+* VCLIP and VCLIPI do not have corresponding RV Standard Extension
+ opcodes (and are the only such operations).
+* Extended Element bitwidths (1 through to 24576 bits) were left out
+ of Simple-V as, again, there is no corresponding RV Standard Extension
+ that covers anything even below 32-bit operands.
+* Polymorphism was entirely left out of Simple-V due to the inherent
+ complexity of automatic type-conversion.
+* Vector Register files were specifically left out of Simple-V in favour
+ of fitting on top of the integer and floating-point files. An
+ "RVV re-retro-fit" needs to be able to mark (implicitly marked)
+ registers as being actually in a separate *vector* register file.
+* Fortunately in RVV (Draft 0.4, V2.3-Draft), the "base" vector
+ register file size is 5 bits (32 registers), whilst the "Extended"
+ variant of RVV specifies 8 bits (256 registers) and has yet to
+ be published.
+* One big difference: Sections 17.12 and 17.17, there are only two possible
+ predication registers in RVV "Base". Through the "indirect" method,
+ Simple-V provides a key-value CSR table that allows (arbitrarily)
+ up to 16 (TBD) of either the floating-point or integer registers to
+ be marked as "predicated" (key), and if so, which integer register to
+ use as the predication mask (value).
+
+**TODO**
# Implementing P (renamed to DSP) on top of Simple-V
including traditional SIMD, in terms of features, ease of implementation,
complexity, flexibility, and die area.
+### [[harmonised_rvv_rvp]]
+
+This is an interesting proposal under development to retro-fit the AndesStar
+P-Ext into V-Ext.
+
### [[alt_rvp]]
Primary benefit of Alt-RVP is the simplicity with which parallelism
designed to be slotted in to an existing implementation (just after
instruction decode) with minimum disruption and effort.
-* minus: the complexity of having to use register renames, OoO, VLIW,
- register file cacheing, all of which has been done before but is a
- pain
+* minus: the complexity (if full parallelism is to be exploited)
+ of having to use register renames, OoO, VLIW, register file cacheing,
+ all of which has been done before but is a pain
* plus: transparent re-use of existing opcodes as-is just indirectly
saying "this register's now a vector" which
* plus: means that future instructions also get to be inherently
a SIMD architecture where the ALU becomes responsible for the parallelism,
Alt-RVP ALUs would likewise be so responsible... with *additional*
(lane-based) parallelism on top.
-* Thus at least some of the downsides of SIMD ISA O(N^3) proliferation by
+* Thus at least some of the downsides of SIMD ISA O(N^5) proliferation by
at least one dimension are avoided (architectural upgrades introducing
128-bit then 256-bit then 512-bit variants of the exact same 64-bit
SIMD block)
operations, all the while keeping a consistent ISA-level "API" irrespective
of implementor design choices (or indeed actual implementations).
+### Example Instruction translation: <a name="example_translation"></a>
+
+Instructions "ADD r7 r4 r4" would result in three instructions being
+generated and placed into the FIFO. r7 and r4 are marked as "vectorised":
+
+* ADD r7 r4 r4
+* ADD r8 r5 r5
+* ADD r9 r6 r6
+
+Instructions "ADD r7 r4 r1" would result in three instructions being
+generated and placed into the FIFO. r7 and r1 are marked as "vectorised"
+whilst r4 is not:
+
+* ADD r7 r4 r1
+* ADD r8 r4 r2
+* ADD r9 r4 r3
+
## Example of vector / vector, vector / scalar, scalar / scalar => vector add
- register CSRvectorlen[XLEN][4]; # not quite decided yet about this one...
- register CSRpredicate[XLEN][4]; # 2^4 is max vector length
- register CSRreg_is_vectorised[XLEN]; # just for fun support scalars as well
- register x[32][XLEN];
-
- function op_add(rd, rs1, rs2, predr)
- {
- /* note that this is ADD, not PADD */
- int i, id, irs1, irs2;
- # checks CSRvectorlen[rd] == CSRvectorlen[rs] etc. ignored
- # also destination makes no sense as a scalar but what the hell...
- for (i = 0, id=0, irs1=0, irs2=0; i<CSRvectorlen[rd]; i++)
- if (CSRpredicate[predr][i]) # i *think* this is right...
- x[rd+id] <= x[rs1+irs1] + x[rs2+irs2];
- # now increment the idxs
- if (CSRreg_is_vectorised[rd]) # bitfield check rd, scalar/vector?
- id += 1;
- if (CSRreg_is_vectorised[rs1]) # bitfield check rs1, scalar/vector?
- irs1 += 1;
- if (CSRreg_is_vectorised[rs2]) # bitfield check rs2, scalar/vector?
- irs2 += 1;
- }
+ function op_add(rd, rs1, rs2) # add not VADD!
+ int i, id=0, irs1=0, irs2=0;
+ rd = int_vec[rd ].isvector ? int_vec[rd ].regidx : rd;
+ rs1 = int_vec[rs1].isvector ? int_vec[rs1].regidx : rs1;
+ rs2 = int_vec[rs2].isvector ? int_vec[rs2].regidx : rs2;
+ predval = get_pred_val(FALSE, rd);
+ for (i = 0; i < VL; i++)
+ if (predval & 1<<i) # predication uses intregs
+ ireg[rd+id] <= ireg[rs1+irs1] + ireg[rs2+irs2];
+ if (int_vec[rd ].isvector) { id += 1; }
+ if (int_vec[rs1].isvector) { irs1 += 1; }
+ if (int_vec[rs2].isvector) { irs2 += 1; }
## Retro-fitting Predication into branch-explicit ISA <a name="predication_retrofit"></a>
adequate space to interpret it in a similar fashion:
[[!table data="""
- 31 |30 ..... 25 |24 ... 20 | 19 ... 15 | 14 ...... 12 | 11 ....... 8 | 7 | 6 ....... 0 |
-imm[12] | imm[10:5] | rs2 | rs1 | funct3 | imm[4:1] | imm[11] | opcode |
- 1 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 7 |
- offset[12,10:5] || src2 | src1 | BEQ | offset[11,4:1] || BRANCH |
+31 |30 ..... 25 |24..20|19..15| 14...12| 11.....8 | 7 | 6....0 |
+imm[12] | imm[10:5] |rs2 | rs1 | funct3 | imm[4:1] | imm[11] | opcode |
+ 1 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 7 |
+ offset[12,10:5] || src2 | src1 | BEQ | offset[11,4:1] || BRANCH |
"""]]
This would become:
a predication target as well.
[[!table data="""
-15 ...... 13 | 12 ........... 10 | 9..... 7 | 6 ................. 2 | 1 .. 0 |
- funct3 | imm | rs10 | imm | op |
- 3 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 2 |
- C.BEQZ | offset[8,4:3] | src | offset[7:6,2:1,5] | C1 |
+15..13 | 12 ....... 10 | 9...7 | 6 ......... 2 | 1 .. 0 |
+funct3 | imm | rs10 | imm | op |
+3 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 2 |
+C.BEQZ | offset[8,4:3] | src | offset[7:6,2:1,5] | C1 |
"""]]
Now uses the CS format:
[[!table data="""
-15 ...... 13 | 12 ........... 10 | 9..... 7 | 6 .. 5 | 4......... 2 | 1 .. 0 |
- funct3 | imm | rs10 | imm | | op |
- 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
- C.BEQZ | predicate rs3 | src1 | I/F B | src2 | C1 |
+15..13 | 12 . 10 | 9 .. 7 | 6 .. 5 | 4..2 | 1 .. 0 |
+funct3 | imm | rs10 | imm | | op |
+3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
+C.BEQZ | pred rs3 | src1 | I/F B | src2 | C1 |
"""]]
Bit 6 would be decoded as "operation refers to Integer or Float" including
vew may be one of the following (giving a table "bytestable", used below):
-| vew | bitwidth |
-| --- | -------- |
-| 000 | default |
-| 001 | 8 |
-| 010 | 16 |
-| 011 | 32 |
-| 100 | 64 |
-| 101 | 128 |
-| 110 | rsvd |
-| 111 | rsvd |
+| vew | bitwidth | bytestable |
+| --- | -------- | ---------- |
+| 000 | default | XLEN/8 |
+| 001 | 8 | 1 |
+| 010 | 16 | 2 |
+| 011 | 32 | 4 |
+| 100 | 64 | 8 |
+| 101 | 128 | 16 |
+| 110 | rsvd | rsvd |
+| 111 | rsvd | rsvd |
Pseudocode for vector length taking CSR SIMD-bitwidth into account:
byteidx * 8, # low
byteidx * 8 + (vew-1), # high
-### Example Instruction translation: <a name="example_translation"></a>
-
-Instructions "ADD r2 r4 r4" would result in three instructions being
-generated and placed into the FILO:
-
-* ADD r2 r4 r4
-* ADD r2 r5 r5
-* ADD r2 r6 r6
-
### Insights
SIMD register file splitting still to consider. For RV64, benefits of doubling
Whilst the above may seem to be severe minuses, there are some strong
pluses:
-* Significant reduction of V's opcode space: over 85%.
+* Significant reduction of V's opcode space: over 95%.
* Smaller reduction of P's opcode space: around 10%.
* The potential to use Compressed instructions in both Vector and SIMD
due to the overloading of register meaning (implicit vectorisation,
makes proposing it quite challenging given that the relevant (Base) RV
sections are frozen. Consequently it makes sense to forgo this feature.
-## Virtual Memory page-faults
+## Context Switch Example <a name="context_switch"></a>
+
+An unusual side-effect of Simple-V mapping onto the standard register files
+is that LOAD-multiple and STORE-multiple are accidentally available, as long
+as it is acceptable that the register(s) to be loaded/stored are contiguous
+(per instruction). An additional accidental benefit is that Compressed LD/ST
+may also be used.
+
+To illustrate how this works, here is some example code from FreeRTOS
+(GPLv2 licensed, portasm.S):
+
+ /* Macro for saving task context */
+ .macro portSAVE_CONTEXT
+ .global pxCurrentTCB
+ /* make room in stack */
+ addi sp, sp, -REGBYTES * 32
+
+ /* Save Context */
+ STORE x1, 0x0(sp)
+ STORE x2, 1 * REGBYTES(sp)
+ STORE x3, 2 * REGBYTES(sp)
+ ...
+ ...
+ STORE x30, 29 * REGBYTES(sp)
+ STORE x31, 30 * REGBYTES(sp)
+
+ /* Store current stackpointer in task control block (TCB) */
+ LOAD t0, pxCurrentTCB //pointer
+ STORE sp, 0x0(t0)
+ .endm
+
+ /* Saves current error program counter (EPC) as task program counter */
+ .macro portSAVE_EPC
+ csrr t0, mepc
+ STORE t0, 31 * REGBYTES(sp)
+ .endm
+
+ /* Saves current return adress (RA) as task program counter */
+ .macro portSAVE_RA
+ STORE ra, 31 * REGBYTES(sp)
+ .endm
+
+ /* Macro for restoring task context */
+ .macro portRESTORE_CONTEXT
+
+ .global pxCurrentTCB
+ /* Load stack pointer from the current TCB */
+ LOAD sp, pxCurrentTCB
+ LOAD sp, 0x0(sp)
+
+ /* Load task program counter */
+ LOAD t0, 31 * REGBYTES(sp)
+ csrw mepc, t0
+
+ /* Run in machine mode */
+ li t0, MSTATUS_PRV1
+ csrs mstatus, t0
+
+ /* Restore registers,
+ Skip global pointer because that does not change */
+ LOAD x1, 0x0(sp)
+ LOAD x4, 3 * REGBYTES(sp)
+ LOAD x5, 4 * REGBYTES(sp)
+ ...
+ ...
+ LOAD x30, 29 * REGBYTES(sp)
+ LOAD x31, 30 * REGBYTES(sp)
+
+ addi sp, sp, REGBYTES * 32
+ mret
+ .endm
+
+The important bits are the Load / Save context, which may be replaced
+with firstly setting up the Vectors and secondly using a *single* STORE
+(or LOAD) including using C.ST or C.LD, to indicate that the entire
+bank of registers is to be loaded/saved:
+
+ /* a few things are assumed here: (a) that when switching to
+ M-Mode an entirely different set of CSRs is used from that
+ which is used in U-Mode and (b) that the M-Mode x1 and x4
+ vectors are also not used anywhere else in M-Mode, consequently
+ only need to be set up just the once.
+ */
+ .macroVectorSetup
+ MVECTORCSRx1 = 31, defaultlen
+ MVECTORCSRx4 = 28, defaultlen
+
+ /* Save Context */
+ SETVL x0, x0, 31 /* x0 ignored silently */
+ STORE x1, 0x0(sp) // x1 marked as 31-long vector of default bitwidth
+
+ /* Restore registers,
+ Skip global pointer because that does not change */
+ LOAD x1, 0x0(sp)
+ SETVL x0, x0, 28 /* x0 ignored silently */
+ LOAD x4, 3 * REGBYTES(sp) // x4 marked as 28-long default bitwidth
+
+Note that although it may just be a bug in portasm.S, x2 and x3 appear not
+to be being restored. If however this is a bug and they *do* need to be
+restored, then the SETVL call may be moved to *outside* the Save / Restore
+Context assembly code, into the macroVectorSetup, as long as vectors are
+never used anywhere else (i.e. VL is never altered by M-Mode).
+
+In effect the entire bank of repeated LOAD / STORE instructions is replaced
+by one single (compressed if it is available) instruction.
+
+## Virtual Memory page-faults on LOAD/STORE
+
+
+### Notes from conversations
> I was going through the C.LOAD / C.STORE section 12.3 of V2.3-Draft
> riscv-isa-manual in order to work out how to re-map RVV onto the standard
(particularly ones already decoded and moved into the execution FIFO)
would still be there (and stalled). hmmm.
+----
+
+ > > # assume internal parallelism of 8 and MAXVECTORLEN of 8
+ > > VSETL r0, 8
+ > > FADD x1, x2, x3
+ >
+ > > x3[0]: ok
+ > > x3[1]: exception
+ > > x3[2]: ok
+ > > ...
+ > > ...
+ > > x3[7]: ok
+ >
+ > > what happens to result elements 2-7? those may be *big* results
+ > > (RV128)
+ > > or in the RVV-Extended may be arbitrary bit-widths far greater.
+ >
+ > (you replied:)
+ >
+ > Thrown away.
+
+discussion then led to the question of OoO architectures
+
+> The costs of the imprecise-exception model are greater than the benefit.
+> Software doesn't want to cope with it. It's hard to debug. You can't
+> migrate state between different microarchitectures--unless you force all
+> implementations to support the same imprecise-exception model, which would
+> greatly limit implementation flexibility. (Less important, but still
+> relevant, is that the imprecise model increases the size of the context
+> structure, as the microarchitectural guts have to be spilled to memory.)
+
+## Zero/Non-zero Predication
+
+>> > it just occurred to me that there's another reason why the data
+>> > should be left instead of zeroed. if the standard register file is
+>> > used, such that vectorised operations are translated to mean "please
+>> > insert multiple register-contiguous operations into the instruction
+>> > FIFO" and predication is used to *skip* some of those, then if the
+>> > next "vector" operation uses the (standard) registers that were masked
+>> > *out* of the previous operation it may proceed without blocking.
+>> >
+>> > if however zeroing is made mandatory then that optimisation becomes
+>> > flat-out impossible to deploy.
+>> >
+>> > whilst i haven't fully thought through the full implications, i
+>> > suspect RVV might also be able to benefit by being able to fit more
+>> > overlapping operations into the available SRAM by doing something
+>> > similar.
+>
+>
+> Luke, this is called density time masking. It doesn’t apply to only your
+> model with the “standard register file” is used. it applies to any
+> architecture that attempts to speed up by skipping computation and writeback
+> of masked elements.
+>
+> That said, the writing of zeros need not be explicit. It is possible to add
+> a “zero bit” per element that, when set, forces a zero to be read from the
+> vector (although the underlying storage may have old data). In this case,
+> there may be a way to implement DTM as well.
+
+
+## Implementation detail for scalar-only op detection <a name="scalar_detection"></a>
+
+Note 1: this idea is a pipeline-bypass concept, which may *or may not* be
+worthwhile.
+
+Note 2: this is just one possible implementation. Another implementation
+may choose to treat *all* operations as vectorised (including treating
+scalars as vectors of length 1), choosing to add an extra pipeline stage
+dedicated to *all* instructions.
+
+This section *specifically* covers the implementor's freedom to choose
+that they wish to minimise disruption to an existing design by detecting
+"scalar-only operations", bypassing the vectorisation phase (which may
+or may not require an additional pipeline stage)
+
+[[scalardetect.png]]
+
+>> For scalar ops an implementation may choose to compare 2-3 bits through an
+>> AND gate: are src & dest scalar? Yep, ok send straight to ALU (or instr
+>> FIFO).
+
+> Those bits cannot be known until after the registers are decoded from the
+> instruction and a lookup in the "vector length table" has completed.
+> Considering that one of the reasons RISC-V keeps registers in invariant
+> positions across all instructions is to simplify register decoding, I expect
+> that inserting an SRAM read would lengthen the critical path in most
+> implementations.
+
+reply:
+
+> briefly: the trick i mentioned about ANDing bits together to check if
+> an op was fully-scalar or not was to be read out of a single 32-bit
+> 3R1W SRAM (64-bit if FPU exists). the 32/64-bit SRAM contains 1 bit per
+> register indicating "is register vectorised yes no". 3R because you need
+> to check src1, src2 and dest simultaneously. the entries are *generated*
+> from the CSRs and are an optimisation that on slower embedded systems
+> would likely not be needed.
+
+> is there anything unreasonable that anyone can foresee about that?
+> what are the down-sides?
+
+## C.MV predicated src, predicated dest
+
+> Can this be usefully defined in such a way that it is
+> equivalent to vector gather-scatter on each source, followed by a
+> non-predicated vector-compare, followed by vector gather-scatter on the
+> result?
+
+## element width conversion: restrict or remove?
+
+summary: don't restrict / remove. it's fine.
+
+> > it has virtually no cost/overhead as long as you specify
+> > that inputs can only upconvert, and operations are always done at the
+> > largest size, and downconversion only happens at the output.
+>
+> okaaay. so that's a really good piece of implementation advice.
+> algorithms do require data size conversion, so at some point you need to
+> introduce the feature of upconverting and downconverting.
+>
+> > for int and uint, this is dead simple and fits well within the RVV pipeline
+> > without any critical path, pipeline depth, or area implications.
+
+<https://groups.google.com/a/groups.riscv.org/forum/#!topic/isa-dev/g3feFnAoKIM>
+
+## Under review / discussion: remove CSR vector length, use VSETVL <a name="vsetvl"></a>
+
+**DECISION: 11jun2018 - CSR vector length removed, VSETVL determines
+length on all regs**. This section kept for historical reasons.
+
+So the issue is as follows:
+
+* CSRs are used to set the "span" of a vector (how many of the standard
+ register file to contiguously use)
+* VSETVL in RVV works as follows: it sets the vector length (copy of which
+ is placed in a dest register), and if the "required" length is longer
+ than the *available* length, the dest reg is set to the MIN of those
+ two.
+* **HOWEVER**... in SV, *EVERY* vector register has its own separate
+ length and thus there is no way (at the time that VSETVL is called) to
+ know what to set the vector length *to*.
+* At first glance it seems that it would be perfectly fine to just limit
+ the vector operation to the length specified in the destination
+ register's CSR, at the time that each instruction is issued...
+ except that that cannot possibly be guaranteed to match
+ with the value *already loaded into the target register from VSETVL*.
+
+Therefore a different approach is needed.
+
+Possible options include:
+
+* Removing the CSR "Vector Length" and always using the value from
+ VSETVL. "VSETVL destreg, counterreg, #lenimmed" will set VL *and*
+ destreg equal to MIN(counterreg, lenimmed), with register-based
+ variant "VSETVL destreg, counterreg, lenreg" doing the same.
+* Keeping the CSR "Vector Length" and having the lenreg version have
+ a "twist": "if lengreg is vectorised, read the length from the CSR"
+* Other (TBD)
+
+The first option (of the ones brainstormed so far) is a lot simpler.
+It does however mean that the length set in VSETVL will apply across-the-board
+to all src1, src2 and dest vectorised registers until it is otherwise changed
+(by another VSETVL call). This is probably desirable behaviour.
+
+## Implementation Paradigms <a name="implementation_paradigms"></a>
+
+TODO: assess various implementation paradigms. These are listed roughly
+in order of simplicity (minimum compliance, for ultra-light-weight
+embedded systems or to reduce design complexity and the burden of
+design implementation and compliance, in non-critical areas), right the
+way to high-performance systems.
+
+* Full (or partial) software-emulated (via traps): full support for CSRs
+ required, however when a register is used that is detected (in hardware)
+ to be vectorised, an exception is thrown.
+* Single-issue In-order, reduced pipeline depth (traditional SIMD / DSP)
+* In-order 5+ stage pipelines with instruction FIFOs and mild register-renaming
+* Out-of-order with instruction FIFOs and aggressive register-renaming
+* VLIW
+
+Also to be taken into consideration:
+
+* "Virtual" vectorisation: single-issue loop, no internal ALU parallelism
+* Comphrensive vectorisation: FIFOs and internal parallelism
+* Hybrid Parallelism
+
+### Full or partial software-emulation
+
+The absolute, absolute minimal implementation is to provide the full
+set of CSRs and detection logic for when any of the source or destination
+registers are vectorised. On detection, a trap is thrown, whether it's
+a branch, LOAD, STORE, or an arithmetic operation.
+
+Implementors are entirely free to choose whether to allow absolutely every
+single operation to be software-emulated, or whether to provide some emulation
+and some hardware support. In particular, for an RV32E implementation
+where fast context-switching is a requirement (see "Context Switch Example"),
+it makes no sense to allow Vectorised-LOAD/STORE to be implemented as an
+exception, as every context-switch will result in double-traps.
+
+# TODO Research
+
+> For great floating point DSPs check TI’s C3x, C4X, and C6xx DSPs
+
+Idea: basic simple butterfly swap on a few element indices, primarily targetted
+at SIMD / DSP. High-byte low-byte swapping, high-word low-word swapping,
+perhaps allow reindexing of permutations up to 4 elements? 8? Reason:
+such operations are less costly than a full indexed-shuffle, which requires
+a separate instruction cycle.
+
+Predication "all zeros" needs to be "leave alone". Detection of
+ADD r1, rs1, rs0 cases result in nop on predication index 0, whereas
+ADD r0, rs1, rs2 is actually a desirable copy from r2 into r0.
+Destruction of destination indices requires a copy of the entire vector
+in advance to avoid.
+
+TBD: floating-point compare and other exception handling
+
# References
* SIMD considered harmful <https://www.sigarch.org/simd-instructions-considered-harmful/>
* Discussion on RVV "re-entrant" capabilities allowing operations to be
restarted if an exception occurs (VM page-table miss)
<https://groups.google.com/a/groups.riscv.org/d/msg/isa-dev/IuNFitTw9fM/CCKBUlzsAAAJ>
+* Dot Product Vector <https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~biancolin/papers/arith17.pdf>
+* RVV slides 2017 <https://content.riscv.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Wed-1330-RISCVRogerEspasaVEXT-v4.pdf>
+* Wavefront skipping using BRAMS <http://www.ece.ubc.ca/~lemieux/publications/severance-fpga2015.pdf>
+* Streaming Pipelines <http://www.ece.ubc.ca/~lemieux/publications/severance-fpga2014.pdf>
+* Barcelona SIMD Presentation <https://content.riscv.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/09.05.2018-9.15-9.30am-RISCV201805-Andes-proposed-P-extension.pdf>
+* <http://www.ece.ubc.ca/~lemieux/publications/severance-fpga2015.pdf>
+* Full Description (last page) of RVV instructions
+ <https://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs152/sp18/handouts/lab4-1.0.pdf>
+* PULP Low-energy Cluster Vector Processor
+ <http://iis-projects.ee.ethz.ch/index.php/Low-Energy_Cluster-Coupled_Vector_Coprocessor_for_Special-Purpose_PULP_Acceleration>
projects / libreriscv.git / blobdiff