-# Simple-V (Parallelism Extension Proposal) Appendix
+
+# Simple-V (Parallelism Extension Proposal) Appendix (OBSOLETE)
+
+**OBSOLETE**
* Copyright (C) 2017, 2018, 2019 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
* Status: DRAFTv0.6
Branch operations are augmented slightly to be a little more like FP
Compares (FEQ, FNE etc.), by permitting the cumulation (and storage)
of multiple comparisons into a register (taken indirectly from the predicate
-table). As such, "ffirst" - fail-on-first - condition mode can be enabled.
+table) and enhancing them to branch "consensually" depending on *multiple*
+tests. "ffirst" - fail-on-first - condition mode can also be enabled,
+to terminate the comparisons early.
See ffirst mode in the Predication Table section.
+There are two registers for the comparison operation, therefore there
+is the opportunity to associate two predicate registers (note: not in
+the same way as twin-predication). The first is a "normal" predicate
+register, which acts just as it does on any other single-predicated
+operation: masks out elements where a bit is zero, applies an inversion
+to the predicate mask, and enables zeroing / non-zeroing mode.
+
+The second (not to be confused with a twin-predication 2nd register)
+is utilised to indicate where the results of each comparison are to
+be stored, as a bitmask. Additionally, the behaviour of the branch -
+when it occurs - may also be modified depending on whether the 2nd predicate's
+"invert" and "zeroing" bits are set. These four combinations result
+in "consensual branches", cbranch.ifnone (NOR), cbranch.ifany (OR),
+cbranch.ifall (AND), cbranch.ifnotall (NAND).
+
+| invert | zeroing | description | operation | cbranch |
+| ------ | ------- | --------------------------- | --------- | ------- |
+| 0 | 0 | branch if all pass | AND | ifall |
+| 1 | 0 | branch if one fails | NAND | ifnall |
+| 0 | 1 | branch if one passes | OR | ifany |
+| 1 | 1 | branch if all fail | NOR | ifnone |
+
+This inversion capability covers AND, OR, NAND and NOR branching
+based on multiple element comparisons. Without the full set of four,
+it is necessary to have two-sequence branch operations: one conditional, one
+unconditional.
+
+Note that unlike normal computer programming, early-termination of chains
+of AND or OR conditional tests, the chain does *not* terminate early
+except if fail-on-first is set, and even then ffirst ends on the first
+data-dependent zero. When ffirst mode is not set, *all* conditional
+element tests must be performed (and the result optionally stored in
+the result mask), with a "post-analysis" phase carried out which checks
+whether to branch.
+
+Note also that whilst it may seem excessive to have all four (because
+conditional comparisons may be inverted by swapping src1 and src2),
+data-dependent fail-on-first is *not* invertible and *only* terminates
+on first zero-condition encountered. Additionally it may be inconvenient
+to have to swap the predicate registers associated with src1 and src2,
+because this involves a new VBLOCK Context.
+
### Standard Branch <a name="standard_branch"></a>
Branch operations use standard RV opcodes that are reinterpreted to
Note that just as with the standard (scalar, non-predicated) branch
operations, BLE, BGT, BLEU and BTGU may be synthesised by inverting
-src1 and src2.
+src1 and src2, however note that in doing so, the predicate table
+setup must also be correspondingly adjusted.
In Hwacha EECS-2015-262 Section 6.7.2 the following pseudocode is given
for predicated compare operations of function "cmp":
ps = get_pred_val(I/F==INT, rs1);
rd = get_pred_val(I/F==INT, rs2); # this may not exist
+ ffirst_mode, zeroing = get_pred_flags(rs1)
+ if exists(rd):
+ pred_inversion, pred_zeroing = get_pred_flags(rs2)
+ else
+ pred_inversion, pred_zeroing = False, False
+
if not exists(rd) or zeroing:
result = (1<<VL)-1 # all 1s
else
result |= 1<<i;
else
result &= ~(1<<i);
+ if ffirst_mode:
+ break
- if not exists(rd)
- if result == ps
- goto branch
- else
+ if exists(rd):
preg[rd] = result # store in destination
- if preg[rd] == ps
- goto branch
+
+ if pred_inversion:
+ if pred_zeroing:
+ # NOR
+ if result == 0:
+ goto branch
+ else:
+ # NAND
+ if (result & ps) != result:
+ goto branch
+ else:
+ if pred_zeroing:
+ # OR
+ if result != 0:
+ goto branch
+ else:
+ # AND
+ if (result & ps) == result:
+ goto branch
Notes:
is also marked as scalar, this is how the compatibility with
standard RV LOAD/STORE is preserved by this algorithm.
-### Example Tables showing LOAD elements
+### Example Tables showing LOAD elements <a name="load_example"></a>
This section contains examples of vectorised LOAD operations, showing
how the two stage process works (three if zero/sign-extension is included).
"inactive" for predicated elements, even though it results in
less than 100% ALU utilisation.
-## Twin-predication (based on source and destination register)
+## Twin-predication (based on source and destination register) <a name="tpred"></a>
Twin-predication is not that much different, except that that
the source is independently zero-predicated from the destination.