gem5 - gem5

Age	Commit message (Collapse)	Author
2015-07-07	sim: Decouple draining from the SimObject hierarchy	Andreas Sandberg
	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.
2015-07-03	mem: Delay responses in the crossbar before forwarding	Andreas Hansson
	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.
2015-03-02	mem: Add crossbar latencies	Marco Balboni
	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.
2015-03-02	mem: Split port retry for all different packet classes	Andreas Hansson
	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.
2015-02-11	mem: Clarification of packet crossbar timings	Marco Balboni
	This patch clarifies the packet timings annotated when going through a crossbar. The old 'firstWordDelay' is replaced by 'headerDelay' that represents the delay associated to the delivery of the header of the packet. The old 'lastWordDelay' is replaced by 'payloadDelay' that represents the delay needed to processing the payload of the packet. For now the uses and values remain identical. However, going forward the payloadDelay will be additive, and not include the headerDelay. Follow-on patches will make the headerDelay capture the pipeline latency incurred in the crossbar, whereas the payloadDelay will capture the additional serialisation delay.
2015-01-22	mem: Make the XBar responsible for tracking response routing	Andreas Hansson
	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%.
2014-12-02	mem: Relax packet src/dest check and shift onus to crossbar	Andreas Hansson
	This patch allows objects to get the src/dest of a packet even if it is not set to a valid port id. This simplifies (ab)using the bridge as a buffer and latency adapter in situations where the neighbouring MemObjects are not crossbars. The checks that were done in the packet are now shifted to the crossbar where the fields are used to index into the port arrays. Thus, the carrier of the information is not burdened with checking, and the crossbar can check not only that the destination is set, but also that the port index is within limits.
2014-09-20	mem: Rename Bus to XBar to better reflect its behaviour	Andreas Hansson
	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