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-%& latex
-\documentclass[11pt]{article}
-\usepackage{graphics}
-\usepackage{color}
-
-\textheight 9.0 in
-\topmargin -0.5 in
-\textwidth 6.5 in
-\oddsidemargin -0.0 in
-\evensidemargin -0.0 in
-
-\begin{document}
-
-\definecolor{dark}{gray}{0.5}
-
-\newcommand{\syntax}[1]{%
-\begin{center}
-\fbox{\tt \small
-\begin{tabular}{l}
-#1\end{tabular}}\end{center}}
-
-\begin{center}
-{\LARGE Tutorial for SLICC v0.2} \\
-\vspace{.25in}
-{\large Milo Martin} \\
-{\large 8/25/1999}
-\end{center}
-
-\section*{Overview}
-
-This document attempts to illustrate the syntax and expressiveness of
-the cache coherence protocol specification language through a small
-example. A ``stupido'' cache coherence protocol is described in prose
-and then expressed in the language.
-
-The protocol used as the running example is described. Then each of
-the elements of the protocol is discussed and expressed in the
-language: states, events, transitions, and actions.
-
-\section*{Protocol Description}
-
-In order to make this example a simple as possible, the protocol
-described is a simple as possible and makes many simplifying
-assumptions. These simplifications were made only to clarify the
-exposition and are not indications of limitations of the
-expressiveness of the description language. We have already specified
-a more complicated MSI broadcast snooping protocol, a multicast
-snooping protocol, and a directory protocol. The simplifying
-assumptions are listed below. The remaining details of the protocol
-are described in the sections where we give the syntax of the
-language.
-
-\begin{itemize}
-
-\item
-The protocol uses broadcast snooping that assumes that a broadcast can
-only occur if all processors have processed all of their incoming
-address transactions. In essence, when a processor issue an address
-request, that request will be next in the global order. This allows
-us to avoid needed to handle the cases before we have observed our
-request in the global order.
-
-\item
-The protocol has only Modified and Idle stable states. (Note: Even
-the Shared state is omitted.)
-
-\item
-To avoid describing replacement (PutX's) and writebacks, the caches
-are in treated as infinite in size.
-
-\item
-No forward progress bit is used, so the protocol as specified does not
-guarantee forward progress.
-
-\item
-Only the mandatory request queue is used. No optional or prefetch
-queue is described.
-
-\item
-The above simplifications reduce the need for TBEs (Translation Buffer
-Entries) and thus the idea of a TBE is not include.
-
-\item
-Each memory module is assumed to have some state associated with each
-cache block in the memory. This requires a simple directory/memory
-state machine to work as a compliment to the processor state machine.
-Traditional broadcast snooping protocols often have no ``directory''
-state in the memory.
-
-\end{itemize}
-
-\section*{Protocol Messages}
-
-Cache coherence protocols communicate by sending well defined
-messages. To fully specify a cache coherence protocol we need to be
-able to specify the message types and fields. For this protocol we
-have address messages ({\tt AddressMsg}) which are broadcast, and data
-messages ({\tt DataMsg}) which are point-to-point. Address messages
-have an address field ({\tt Address}), a request type ({\tt Type}),
-and which processor made the request ({\tt Requestor}). Data message
-have an address field ({\tt Address}), a destination ({\tt
-Destination}), and the actual cache block being transfered ({\tt
-DataBlk}). The names in parenthesis are important because those are
-the names which code later in the specification will reference various
-message types and fields in the messages.
-
-Messages are declared by creating types with {\tt new\_type()} and
-adding fields with {\tt type\_field()}. The exact syntax for
-declaring types and message is a bit ugly right now and is going to be
-changed in the near future. If you wish, please see the appendix for
-an example of the current syntax.
-
-
-
-\section*{Cache States}
-
-Idle and Modified are the two stable states in our protocol. In
-addition the we have a single transient processor state. This state
-is used after a processor has issued a request and is waiting for the
-data response to arrive.
-
-Declaring states in the language is the first of a number of
-declarations we will be using. All of these declarations have a
-similar format. Below is the format for a state declaration.
-
-\syntax{
-{\tt state({\em identifier}, {\em shorthand}, {\em pair1}, {\em pair2}, ...);}
-}
-
-{\em identifier} is a name that is used later to
-refer to this state later in the description. It must start with a
-letter and after than can have any combination of letters, numbers,
-and the underscore character. {\em shorthand} is a quoted string
-which contains the shorthand that should be used for the state when
-generating tables and such.
-
-The {\em pair}'s are used to associate arbitrary information with each
-state. Zero or more pairs can be included in each declaration. For
-example we want to have a more verbose description of each state when
-we generate the table which contains the states and descriptions.
-This information is encoded in the language by adding a {\tt desc}
-parameter to a declaration. The name of the parameter is followed by
-an equal sign and a string with the description. The {\tt desc} pair
-technically optional, however the table generation tool will complain
-about a missing description if it is not present.
-
-The three states for our protocol are expressed as follows:
-
-\begin{verbatim}
-state(I, "I", desc="Idle");
-state(M, "M", desc="Modified");
-state(IM, "IM", desc="Idle, issued request but have not seen data yet");
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\section*{Cache Events}
-
-Events are external stimulus that cause the state machine to take
-action. This is most often a message in one of the queues from the
-network or processor. Events form the columns of the protocol table.
-Our simple protocol has one event per incoming queue. When a message
-is waiting in one of these queues and event can occur. We can see a
-request from the processor in the mandatory queue, another processor's
-request, or a data response.
-
-Events are declared in the language similarly to states. The {\em
-identifier}, {\em shorthand}, and {\em pair}'s have the same purpose
-as in a state declaration.
-
-\syntax{
-event({\em identifier}, {\em shorthand}, {\em pair1}, {\em pair2}, ...) \{ \\
-\hspace{.1in} {\em statement\_list} \\
-\} \\
-}
-
-Events are different in that they have a list of statements which
-allows exact specification of when the event should ``trigger'' a
-transition. These statements are mini-programming language with
-syntax similar to that of C. For example the {\tt peek} construct in
-this context checks to see if there is a message at the head of the
-specified queue, and if so, conceptually copies the message to a
-temporary variable accessed as {\tt in\_msg}. The language also
-supports various procedure calls, functions, conditional statements,
-assignment, and queue operations such as peek, enqueue and dequeue.
-The {\tt trigger()} construct takes an address as the only parameter.
-This is the address that should be triggered for the event. To give
-you a feel for what this code looks like, the three events for our
-simple protocol are below.
-
-\begin{verbatim}
-event(LoadStore, "LoadStore", desc="Load or Store request from local processor") {
- peek(mandatoryQueue_ptr, CacheMsg) {
- trigger(in_msg.Address);
- }
-}
-
-event(Other_GETX, "Other GETX", desc="Observed a GETX request from another processor") {
- peek(addressNetwork_ptr, AddressMsg) {
- if (in_msg.Requestor != id) {
- trigger(in_msg.Address);
- }
- }
-}
-
-event(Data, "Data", desc="Data for this block from the data network") {
- peek(dataNetwork_ptr, DataMsg) {
- trigger(in_msg.Address);
- }
-}
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\section*{Cache Actions}
-
-Actions are the privative operations that are performed by various
-state transitions. These correspond (by convention) to the lower case
-letters in the tables. We need several actions in our protocol
-including issuing a GetX request, servicing a cache hit, send data
-from the cache to the requestor, writing data into the cache, and
-popping the various queues.
-
-The syntax of an action declaration is similar to an event
-declaration. The difference is that statements in the statement list
-are used to implement the desired action, and not triggering an event.
-
-\syntax{action({\em identifier}, {\em shorthand}, {\em pair1}, {\em pair2}, ...) \{ \\
-\hspace{.1in} {\em statement\_list} \\
-\}
-}
-
-The actions for this protocol use more of the features of the
-language. Some of the interesting case are discussed below.
-
-\begin{itemize}
-
-\item
-To manipulate values we need assignment statements (notice the use of
-{\verb+:=+} as the assignment operator). The action to write data
-into the cache looks at the incoming data message and puts the data in
-the cache. Notice the use of square brackets to lookup the block in
-the cache based on the address of the block.
-
-\begin{verbatim}
-action(w_writeDataToCache, "w", desc="Write data from data message into cache") {
- peek(dataNetwork_ptr, DataMsg) {
- cacheMemory_ptr[address].DataBlk := in_msg.DataBlk;
- }
-}
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\item
-In addition to peeking at queues, we also enqueue messages. The {\tt
-enqueue} construct works similarly to the {\tt peek} construct. {\tt
-enqueue} creates a temporary called {\tt out\_msg}. You can assign
-the fields of this message. At the end of the {\tt enqueue} construct
-the message is implicitly inserted in the outgoing queue of the
-specified network. Notice also how the type of the message is
-specified and how the assignment statements use the names of the
-fields of the messages. {\tt address} is the address for which the
-event was {\tt trigger}ed.
-
-\begin{verbatim}
-action(g_issueGETX, "g", desc="Issue GETX.") {
- enqueue(addressNetwork_ptr, AddressMsg) {
- out_msg.Address := address;
- out_msg.Type := "GETX";
- out_msg.Requestor := id;
- }
-}
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\item
-Some times we need to use both {\tt peek} and {\tt enqueue} together.
-In this example we look at an incoming address request to figure out
-who to whom to forward the data value.
-
-\begin{verbatim}
-action(r_cacheToRequestor, "r", desc="Send data from the cache to the requestor") {
- peek(addressNetwork_ptr, AddressMsg) {
- enqueue(dataNetwork_ptr, DataMsg) {
- out_msg.Address := address;
- out_msg.Destination := in_msg.Requestor;
- out_msg.DataBlk := cacheMemory_ptr[address].DataBlk;
- }
- }
-}
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\item
-We also need to pop the various queues.
-\begin{verbatim}
-action(k_popMandatoryQueue, "k", desc="Pop mandatory queue.") {
- dequeue(mandatoryQueue_ptr);
-}
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\item
-Finally we have the ability to call procedures and functions. The
-following is an example of a procedure call. Currently all of the
-procedures and functions are used to handle all of the more specific
-operations. These are currently hard coded into the generator.
-
-\begin{verbatim}
-action(h_hit, "h", desc="Service load/store from the cache.") {
- serviceLdSt(address, cacheMemory_ptr[address].DataBlk);
-}
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\end{itemize}
-
-\section*{Cache Transitions}
-
-The cross product of states and events gives us the set of possible
-transitions. For example, for our example protocol the empty would
-be:
-
-\begin{center}
-\begin{tabular}{|l||l|l|l|} \hline
- & LoadStore & Other GETX & Data \\ \hline \hline
-I & & & \\ \hline
-M & & & \\ \hline
-IM & & & \\ \hline
-\end{tabular}
-\end{center}
-
-
-Transitions are atomic and are the heart of the protocol
-specification. The transition specifies both what the next state, and
-also what actions are performed for each unique state/event pair. The
-transition declaration looks different from the other declarations:
-
-\syntax{
-transition({\em state}, {\em event}, {\em new\_state}, {\em pair1}, {\em pair2}, ...) \{ \\
-\hspace{.1in} {\em action\_identifier\_list}\\
-\}
-}
-
-{\em state} and {\em event} are the pair which uniquely identifies the
-transition. {\em state} correspond to the row where {\em event}
-selects the column. {\em new\_state} is an optional parameter. If
-{\em new\_state} is specified, that is the state when the atomic
-transition is completed. If the parameter is omitted there is assumed
-to be no state change. An impossible transition is specified by
-simply not declaring an event for that state/event pair.
-
-We also place list of actions in the curly braces. The {\em
-action\_identifier}'s correspond to the identifier specified as the
-first parameter of an action declaration. The action list is a list
-of operations to be performed when this transition occurs. The
-actions also knows what preconditions are necessary are required for
-the action to be performed. For example a necessary precondition for
-an action which sends a message is that there is a space available in
-the outgoing queue. Each transition is considered atomic, and thus
-the generated code ensures that all of the actions can be completed
-before performing and of the actions.
-
-In our running example protocol it is only possible to receive data in
-the {\em IM} state. The other seven cases can occur and are declared
-as follows. Below are a couple of examples. See the appendix for a
-complete list.
-
-\newpage
-\begin{verbatim}
-transition(I, LoadStore, IM) {
- g_issueGETX;
-}
-
-transition(M, LoadStore) {
- h_hit;
- k_popMandatoryQueue;
-}
-
-transition(M, Other_GETX, I) {
- r_cacheToRequestor;
- i_popAddressQueue;
-}
-\end{verbatim}
-
-From the above declarations we can generate a table. Each box can
-have lower case letters which corresponds to the list of actions
-possibly followed by a slash and a state (in uppercase letters). If
-there is no slash and state, the transition does not change the state.
-
-\begin{center}
-\begin{tabular}{|l||l|l|l|} \hline
- & LoadStore & Other GETX & Data \\ \hline \hline
-I & g/IM & i & (impossible)\\ \hline
-M & hk & ri/I & (impossible)\\ \hline
-IM & z & z & wj/M \\ \hline
-\end{tabular}
-\end{center}
-
-There is a useful shorthand for specifying many transitions with the
-same action. One or both of {\em event} and {\em state} can be a list
-in curly braces. This defines the cross product of the sets in one
-declaration. If no {\em new\_state} is specified none of the
-transitions cause a state change. If {\em new\_state} is specified,
-all of the transitions in the cross product of the sets has the same
-next state. For example, in the below transitions both IM/LoadStore
-and IM/Other\_GETX have the action {\tt z\_delayTrans}.
-\begin{verbatim}
-transition(IM, LoadStore) {
- z_delayTrans;
-}
-
-transition(IM, Other_GETX) {
- z_delayTrans;
-}
-\end{verbatim}
-These can be specified in a single declaration:
-\begin{verbatim}
-transition(IM, {LoadStore, Other_GETX}) {
- z_delayTrans;
-}
-\end{verbatim}
-
-
-\newpage
-\section*{Appendix - Sample Cache Controller Specification}
-
-{\small
-\begin{verbatim}
-machine(processor, "Simple MI Processor") {
-
- // AddressMsg
- new_type(AddressMsg, "AddressMsg", message="yes", desc="");
- type_field(AddressMsg, Address, "address",
- desc="Physical address for this request",
- c_type=PhysAddress, c_include="Address.hh", murphi_type="");
- type_field(AddressMsg, Type, "type",
- desc="Type of request (GetS, GetX, PutX, etc)",
- c_type=CoherenceRequestType, c_include="CoherenceRequestType.hh", murphi_type="");
- type_field(AddressMsg, Requestor, "requestor",
- desc="Node who initiated the request",
- c_type=ComponentID, c_include="ComponentID.hh", murphi_type="");
-
- // DataMsg
- new_type(DataMsg, "DataMsg", message="yes", desc="");
- type_field(DataMsg, Address, "address",
- desc="Physical address for this request",
- c_type=PhysAddress, c_include="Address.hh", murphi_type="");
- type_field(DataMsg, Destination, "destination",
- desc="Node to whom the data is sent",
- c_type=Set, c_include="Set.hh", murphi_type="");
- type_field(DataMsg, DataBlk, "data",
- desc="Node to whom the data is sent",
- c_type=DataBlock, c_include="DataBlock.hh", murphi_type="");
-
- // CacheEntry
- new_type(CacheEntry, "CacheEntry");
- type_field(CacheEntry, CacheState, "Cache state", desc="cache state",
- c_type=CacheState, c_include="CacheState.hh", murphi_type="");
- type_field(CacheEntry, DataBlk, "data", desc="data for the block",
- c_type=DataBlock, c_include="DataBlock.hh", murphi_type="");
-
- // DirectoryEntry
- new_type(DirectoryEntry, "DirectoryEntry");
- type_field(DirectoryEntry, DirectoryState, "Directory state", desc="Directory state",
- c_type=DirectoryState, c_include="DirectoryState.hh", murphi_type="");
- type_field(DirectoryEntry, DataBlk, "data", desc="data for the block",
- c_type=DataBlock, c_include="DataBlock.hh", murphi_type="");
-
-\end{verbatim}
-\newpage
-\begin{verbatim}
- // STATES
- state(I, "I", desc="Idle");
- state(M, "M", desc="Modified");
- state(IM, "IM", desc="Idle, issued request but have not seen data yet");
-
- // EVENTS
-
- // From processor
- event(LoadStore, "LoadStore", desc="Load or Store request from local processor") {
- peek(mandatoryQueue_ptr, CacheMsg) {
- trigger(in_msg.Address);
- }
- }
-
- // From Address network
- event(Other_GETX, "Other GETX", desc="Observed a GETX request from another processor") {
- peek(addressNetwork_ptr, AddressMsg) {
- if (in_msg.Requestor != id) {
- trigger(in_msg.Address);
- }
- }
- }
-
- // From Data network
- event(Data, "Data", desc="Data for this block from the data network") {
- peek(dataNetwork_ptr, DataMsg) {
- trigger(in_msg.Address);
- }
- }
-
- // ACTIONS
- action(g_issueGETX, "g", desc="Issue GETX.") {
- enqueue(addressNetwork_ptr, AddressMsg) {
- out_msg.Address := address;
- out_msg.Type := "GETX";
- out_msg.Requestor := id;
- }
- }
-
- action(h_hit, "h", desc="Service load/store from the cache.") {
- serviceLdSt(address, cacheMemory_ptr[address].DataBlk);
- }
-
- action(i_popAddressQueue, "i", desc="Pop incoming address queue.") {
- dequeue(addressNetwork_ptr);
- }
-
- action(j_popDataQueue, "j", desc="Pop incoming data queue.") {
- dequeue(dataNetwork_ptr);
- }
-
- action(k_popMandatoryQueue, "k", desc="Pop mandatory queue.") {
- dequeue(mandatoryQueue_ptr);
- }
-
- action(r_cacheToRequestor, "r", desc="Send data from the cache to the requestor") {
- peek(addressNetwork_ptr, AddressMsg) {
- enqueue(dataNetwork_ptr, DataMsg) {
- out_msg.Address := address;
- out_msg.Destination := in_msg.Requestor;
- out_msg.DataBlk := cacheMemory_ptr[address].DataBlk;
- }
- }
- }
-
- action(w_writeDataToCache, "w", desc="Write data from data message into cache") {
- peek(dataNetwork_ptr, DataMsg) {
- cacheMemory_ptr[address].DataBlk := in_msg.DataBlk;
- }
- }
-
- action(z_delayTrans, "z", desc="Cannot be handled right now.") {
- stall();
- }
-
- // TRANSITIONS
-
- // Transitions from Idle
- transition(I, LoadStore, IM) {
- g_issueGETX;
- }
-
- transition(I, Other_GETX) {
- i_popAddressQueue;
- }
-
- // Transitions from Modified
- transition(M, LoadStore) {
- h_hit;
- k_popMandatoryQueue;
- }
-
- transition(M, Other_GETX, I) {
- r_cacheToRequestor;
- i_popAddressQueue;
- }
-
- // Transitions from IM
- transition(IM, {LoadStore, Other_GETX}) {
- z_delayTrans;
- }
-
- transition(IM, Data, M) {
- w_writeDataToCache;
- j_popDataQueue;
- }
-}
-\end{verbatim}
-}
-\end{document}
-