This patch takes a first step in tightening up how we use the data
pointer in write packets. A const getter is added for the pointer
itself (getConstPtr), and a number of member functions are also made
const accordingly. In a range of places throughout the memory system
the new member is used.
The patch also removes the unused isReadWrite function.
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 interface is no longer used, and getting rid of it simplifies the
decoders and code that sets up the decoders. The thread context had been used
to read architectural state which was used to contextualize the instruction
memory as it came in. That was changed so that the state is now sent to the
decoders to keep locally if/when it changes. That's significantly more
efficient.
Committed by: Nilay Vaish <nilay@cs.wisc.edu>
This patch addresses the comments and feedback on the preceding patch
that reworks the clocks and now more clearly shows where cycles
(relative cycle counts) are used to express time.
Instead of bumping the existing patch I chose to make this a separate
patch, merely to try and focus the discussion around a smaller set of
changes. The two patches will be pushed together though.
This changes done as part of this patch are mostly following directly
from the introduction of the wrapper class, and change enough code to
make things compile and run again. There are definitely more places
where int/uint/Tick is still used to represent cycles, and it will
take some time to chase them all down. Similarly, a lot of parameters
should be changed from Param.Tick and Param.Unsigned to
Param.Cycles.
In addition, the use of curTick is questionable as there should not be
an absolute cycle. Potential solutions can be built on top of this
patch. There is a similar situation in the o3 CPU where
lastRunningCycle is currently counting in Cycles, and is still an
absolute time. More discussion to be had in other words.
An additional change that would be appropriate in the future is to
perform a similar wrapping of Tick and probably also introduce a
Ticks class along with suitable operators for all these classes.
These classes are always used together, and merging them will give the ISAs
more flexibility in how they cache things and manage the process.
--HG--
rename : src/arch/x86/predecoder_tables.cc => src/arch/x86/decoder_tables.cc
This change adds a master id to each request object which can be
used identify every device in the system that is capable of issuing a request.
This is part of the way to removing the numCpus+1 stats in the cache and
replacing them with the master ids. This is one of a series of changes
that make way for the stats output to be changed to python.
This change pulls the instruction decoding machinery (including caches) out of
the StaticInst class and puts it into its own class. This has a few intrinsic
benefits. First, the StaticInst code, which has gotten to be quite large, gets
simpler. Second, the code that handles decode caching is now separated out
into its own component and can be looked at in isolation, making it easier to
understand. I took the opportunity to restructure the code a bit which will
hopefully also help.
Beyond that, this change also lays some ground work for each ISA to have its
own, potentially stateful decode object. We'd be able to include less
contextualizing information in the ExtMachInst objects since that context
would be applied at the decoder. Also, the decoder could "know" ahead of time
that all the instructions it's going to see are going to be, for instance, 64
bit mode, and it will have one less thing to check when it decodes them.
Because the decode caching mechanism has been separated out, it's now possible
to have multiple caches which correspond to different types of decoding
context. Having one cache for each element of the cross product of different
configurations may become prohibitive, so it may be desirable to clear out the
cache when relatively static state changes and not to have one for each
setting.
Because the decode function is no longer universally accessible as a static
member of the StaticInst class, a new function was added to the ThreadContexts
that returns the applicable decode object.
if a faulting instruction reaches an execution unit,
then ignore it and pass it through the pipeline.
Once we recognize the fault in the graduation unit,
dont allow a second fault to creep in on the same cycle.
At the same time, rename the trace flags to debug flags since they
have broader usage than simply tracing. This means that
--trace-flags is now --debug-flags and --trace-help is now --debug-help
-use a pointer to CacheReqPacket instead of PacketPtr so correct destructors
get called on packet deletion
- make sure to delete the packet if the cache blocks the sendTiming request
or for some reason we dont use the packet
- dont overwrite memory requests since in the worst case an instruction will
be replaying a request so no need to keep allocating a new request
- we dont use retryPkt so delete it
- fetch code was split out already, so just assert that this is a memory
reference inst. and that the staticInst is available
---
need to delete the cache request's data on clearRequest() now that we are recycling
requests
---
fetch unit needs to deallocate the fetch buffer blocks when they are replaced or
squashed.
formerly, to free up bandwidth in a resource, we could just change the pointer in that resource
but at the same time the pipeline stages had visibility to see what happened to a resource request.
Now that we are recycling these requests (to avoid too much dynamic allocation), we can't throw
away the request too early or the pipeline stage gets bad information. Instead, mark when a request
is done with the resource all together and then let the pipeline stage call back to the resource
that it's time to free up the bandwidth for more instructions
*** inteface notes ***
- When an instruction completes and is done in a resource for that cycle, call done()
- When an instruction fails and is done with a resource for that cycle, call done(false)
- When an instruction completes, but isnt finished with a resource, call completed()
- When an instruction fails, but isnt finished with a resource, call completed(false)
* * *
inorder: tlbmiss wakeup bug fix
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
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
