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This patch introduces the ability of making the coherent crossbar the
point of coherency. If so, the crossbar does not forward packets where
a cache with ownership has already committed to responding, and also
does not forward any coherency-related packets that are not intended
for a downstream memory controller. Thus, invalidations and upgrades
are turned around in the crossbar, and the memory controller only sees
normal reads and writes.
In addition this patch moves the express snoop promotion of a packet
to the crossbar, thus allowing the downstream cache to check the
express snoop flag (as it should) for bypassing any blocking, rather
than relying on whether a cache is responding or not.
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This patch unifies how we deal with delayed packet deletion, where the
receiving slave is responsible for deleting the packet, but the
sending agent (e.g. a cache) is still relying on the pointer until the
call to sendTimingReq completes. Previously we used a mix of a
deletion vector and a construct using unique_ptr. With this patch we
ensure all slaves use the latter approach.
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This patch moves away from using M5_ATTR_OVERRIDE and the m5::hashmap
(and similar) abstractions, as these are no longer needed with gcc 4.7
and clang 3.1 as minimum compiler versions.
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Draining is currently done by traversing the SimObject graph and
calling drain()/drainResume() on the SimObjects. This is not ideal
when non-SimObjects (e.g., ports) need draining since this means that
SimObjects owning those objects need to be aware of this.
This changeset moves the responsibility for finding objects that need
draining from SimObjects and the Python-side of the simulator to the
DrainManager. The DrainManager now maintains a set of all objects that
need draining. To reduce the overhead in classes owning non-SimObjects
that need draining, objects inheriting from Drainable now
automatically register with the DrainManager. If such an object is
destroyed, it is automatically unregistered. This means that drain()
and drainResume() should never be called directly on a Drainable
object.
While implementing the new functionality, the DrainManager has now
been made thread safe. In practice, this means that it takes a lock
whenever it manipulates the set of Drainable objects since SimObjects
in different threads may create Drainable objects
dynamically. Similarly, the drain counter is now an atomic_uint, which
ensures that it is manipulated correctly when objects signal that they
are done draining.
A nice side effect of these changes is that it makes the drain state
changes stricter, which the simulation scripts can exploit to avoid
redundant drains.
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This patch changes how the crossbar classes deal with
responses. Instead of forwarding responses directly and burdening the
neighbouring modules in paying for the latency (through the
pkt->headerDelay), we now queue them before sending them.
The coherency protocol is not affected as requests and any snoop
requests/responses are still passed on in zero time. Thus, the
responses end up paying for any header delay accumulated when passing
through the crossbar. Any latency incurred on the request path will be
paid for on the response side, if no other module has dealt with it.
As a result of this patch, responses are returned at a later
point. This affects the number of outstanding transactions, and quite
a few regressions see an impact in blocking due to no MSHRs, increased
cache-miss latencies, etc.
Going forward we should be able to use the same concept also for snoop
responses, and any request that is not an express snoop.
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This patch adds eviction notices to the caches, to provide accurate
tracking of cache blocks in snoop filters. We add the CleanEvict
message to the memory heirarchy and use both CleanEvicts and
Writebacks with BLOCK_CACHED flags to propagate notice of clean and
dirty evictions respectively, down the memory hierarchy. Note that the
BLOCK_CACHED flag indicates whether there exist any copies of the
evicted block in the caches above the evicting cache.
The purpose of the CleanEvict message is to notify snoop filters of
silent evictions in the relevant caches. The CleanEvict message
behaves much like a Writeback. CleanEvict is a write and a request but
unlike a Writeback, CleanEvict does not have data and does not need
exclusive access to the block. The cache generates the CleanEvict
message on a fill resulting in eviction of a clean block. Before
travelling downwards CleanEvict requests generate zero-time snoop
requests to check if the same block is cached in upper levels of the
memory heirarchy. If the block exists, the cache discards the
CleanEvict message. The snoops check the tags, writeback queue and the
MSHRs of upper level caches in a manner similar to snoops generated
from HardPFReqs. Currently CleanEvicts keep travelling towards main
memory unless they encounter the block corresponding to their address
or reach main memory (since we have no well defined point of
serialisation). Main memory simply discards CleanEvict messages.
We have modified the behavior of Writebacks, such that they generate
snoops to check for the presence of blocks in upper level caches. It
is possible in our current implmentation for a lower level cache to be
writing back a block while a shared copy of the same block exists in
the upper level cache. If the snoops find the same block in upper
level caches, we set the BLOCK_CACHED flag in the Writeback message.
We have also added logic to account for interaction of other message
types with CleanEvicts waiting in the writeback queue. A simple
example is of a response arriving at a cache removing any CleanEvicts
to the same address from the cache's writeback queue.
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This patch introduces latencies in crossbar that were neglected
before. In particular, it adds three parameters in crossbar model:
front_end_latency, forward_latency, and response_latency. Along with
these parameters, three corresponding members are added:
frontEndLatency, forwardLatency, and responseLatency. The coherent
crossbar has an additional snoop_response_latency.
The latency of the request path through the xbar is set as
--> frontEndLatency + forwardLatency
In case the snoop filter is enabled, the request path latency is charged
also by look-up latency of the snoop filter.
--> frontEndLatency + SF(lookupLatency) + forwardLatency.
The latency of the response path through the xbar is set instead as
--> responseLatency.
In case of snoop response, if the response is treated as a normal response
the latency associated is again
--> responseLatency;
If instead it is forwarded as snoop response we add an additional variable
+ snoopResponseLatency
and the latency associated is
--> snoopResponseLatency;
Furthermore, this patch lets the crossbar progress on the next clock
edge after an unused retry, changing the time the crossbar considers
itself busy after sending a retry that was not acted upon.
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This patch fixes a long-standing isue with the port flow
control. Before this patch the retry mechanism was shared between all
different packet classes. As a result, a snoop response could get
stuck behind a request waiting for a retry, even if the send/recv
functions were split. This caused message-dependent deadlocks in
stress-test scenarios.
The patch splits the retry into one per packet (message) class. Thus,
sendTimingReq has a corresponding recvReqRetry, sendTimingResp has
recvRespRetry etc. Most of the changes to the code involve simply
clarifying what type of request a specific object was accepting.
The biggest change in functionality is in the cache downstream packet
queue, facing the memory. This queue was shared by requests and snoop
responses, and it is now split into two queues, each with their own
flow control, but the same physical MasterPort. These changes fixes
the previously seen deadlocks.
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This patch removes the need for a source and destination field in the
packet by shifting the onus of the tracking to the crossbar, much like
a real implementation. This change in behaviour also means we no
longer need a SenderState to remember the source/dest when ever we
have multiple crossbars in the system. Thus, the stack that was
created by the SenderState is not needed, and each crossbar locally
tracks the response routing.
The fields in the packet are still left behind as the RubyPort (which
also acts as a crossbar) does routing based on them. In the succeeding
patches the uses of the src and dest field will be removed. Combined,
these patches improve the simulation performance by roughly 2%.
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This patch changes the name of the Bus classes to XBar to better
reflect the actual timing behaviour. The actual instances in the
config scripts are not renamed, and remain as e.g. iobus or membus.
As part of this renaming, the code has also been clean up slightly,
making use of range-based for loops and tidying up some comments. The
only changes outside the bus/crossbar code is due to the delay
variables in the packet.
--HG--
rename : src/mem/Bus.py => src/mem/XBar.py
rename : src/mem/coherent_bus.cc => src/mem/coherent_xbar.cc
rename : src/mem/coherent_bus.hh => src/mem/coherent_xbar.hh
rename : src/mem/noncoherent_bus.cc => src/mem/noncoherent_xbar.cc
rename : src/mem/noncoherent_bus.hh => src/mem/noncoherent_xbar.hh
rename : src/mem/bus.cc => src/mem/xbar.cc
rename : src/mem/bus.hh => src/mem/xbar.hh
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