# Variable-width Variable-packed SIMD / Simple-V / Parallelism Extension Proposal
+Key insight: Simple-V is intended as an abstraction layer to provide
+a consistent "API" to parallelisation of existing *and future* operations.
+*Actual* internal hardware-level parallelism is *not* required, such
+that Simple-V may be viewed as providing a "compact" or "consolidated"
+means of issuing multiple near-identical arithmetic instructions to an
+instruction queue (FILO), pending execution.
+
+*Actual* parallelism, if added independently of Simple-V in the form
+of Out-of-order restructuring (including parallel ALU lanes) or VLIW
+implementations, or SIMD, or anything else, would then benefit *if*
+Simple-V was added on top.
+
+[[!toc ]]
+
+# Introduction
+
This proposal exists so as to be able to satisfy several disparate
requirements: power-conscious, area-conscious, and performance-conscious
designs all pull an ISA and its implementation in different conflicting
whilst each extremely powerful in their own right and clearly desirable,
are also:
-* Clearly independent in their origins (Cray and AndeStar v3 respectively)
+* Clearly independent in their origins (Cray and AndesStar v3 respectively)
so need work to adapt to the RISC-V ethos and paradigm
* Are sufficiently large so as to make adoption (and exploration for
analysis and review purposes) prohibitively expensive
Additionally it makes sense to *split out* the parallelism inherent within
each of P and V, and to see if each of P and V then, in *combination* with
-a "best-of-both" parallelism extension, would work well.
-
-**TODO**: reword this to better suit this document:
+a "best-of-both" parallelism extension, could be added on *on top* of
+this proposal, to topologically provide the exact same functionality of
+each of P and V. Each of P and V then can focus on providing the best
+operations possible for their respective target areas, without being
+hugely concerned about the actual parallelism.
-Having looked at both P and V as they stand, they're _both_ very much
-"separate engines" that, despite both their respective merits and
-extremely powerful features, don't really cleanly fit into the RV design
-ethos (or the flexible extensibility) and, as such, are both in danger
-of not being widely adopted. I'm inclined towards recommending:
-
-* splitting out the DSP aspects of P-SIMD to create a single-issue DSP
-* splitting out the polymorphism, esoteric data types (GF, complex
- numbers) and unusual operations of V to create a single-issue "Esoteric
- Floating-Point" extension
-* splitting out the loop-aspects, vector aspects and data-width aspects
- of both P and V to a *new* "P-SIMD / Simple-V" and requiring that they
- apply across *all* Extensions, whether those be DSP, M, Base, V, P -
- everything.
+Furthermore, an additional goal of this proposal is to reduce the number
+of opcodes utilised by each of P and V as they currently stand, leveraging
+existing RISC-V opcodes where possible, and also potentially allowing
+P and V to make use of Compressed Instructions as a result.
**TODO**: propose overflow registers be actually one of the integer regs
(flowing to multiple regs).
**TODO**: propose "mask" (predication) registers likewise. combination with
-standard RV instructions and overflow registers extremely powerful
-
-**TODO**: propose two LOAD/STORE offset CSRs, which mark a particular
-register as being "if you use this reg in LOAD/STORE, use the offset
-amount CSRoffsN (N=0,1) instead of treating LOAD/STORE as contiguous".
-can be used for matrix spanning.
-
+standard RV instructions and overflow registers extremely powerful, see
+Aspex ASP.
# Analysis and discussion of Vector vs SIMD
-There are four combined areas between the two proposals that help with
+There are five combined areas between the two proposals that help with
parallelism without over-burdening the ISA with a huge proliferation of
instructions:
for general-purpose computation, and in the context of developing a
general-purpose ISA, is never going to satisfy 100 percent of implementors.
+To explain this further: for increased workloads over time, as the
+performance requirements increase for new target markets, implementors
+choose to extend the SIMD width (so as to again avoid mixing parallelism
+into the instruction issue phases: the primary "simplicity" benefit of
+SIMD in the first place), with the result that the entire opcode space
+effectively doubles with each new SIMD width that's added to the ISA.
+
That basically leaves "variable-length vector" as the clear *general-purpose*
winner, at least in terms of greatly simplifying the instruction set,
reducing the number of instructions required for any given task, and thus
due to "type tagging" that is set with a special instruction. A register
will be *specifically* marked as "16-bit Floating-Point" and, if added
to an operand that is specifically tagged as "32-bit Integer" an implicit
-type-conversion will take placce *without* requiring that type-conversion
+type-conversion will take place *without* requiring that type-conversion
to be explicitly done with its own separate instruction.
However, implicit type-conversion is not only quite burdensome to
implement (explosion of inferred type-to-type conversion) but also is
never really going to be complete. It gets even worse when bit-widths
-also have to be taken into consideration.
+also have to be taken into consideration. Each new type results in
+an increased O(N^2) conversion space that, as anyone who has examined
+python's source code (which has built-in polymorphic type-conversion),
+knows that the task is more complex than it first seems.
Overall, type-conversion is generally best to leave to explicit
type-conversion instructions, or in definite specific use-cases left to
proposal would basically allow an inner loop of instructions to be
repeated indefinitely, a fixed number of times.
-Its specific advantage over explicit loops is that the pipeline in a
-DSP can potentially be kept completely full *even in an in-order
+Its specific advantage over explicit loops is that the pipeline in a DSP
+can potentially be kept completely full *even in an in-order single-issue
implementation*. Normally, it requires a superscalar architecture and
-out-of-order execution capabilities to "pre-process" instructions in order
-to keep ALU pipelines 100% occupied.
-
-This very simple proposal offers a way to increase pipeline activity in the
-one key area which really matters: the inner loop.
-
-## Mask and Tagging
-
-*TODO: research masks as they can be superb and extremely powerful.
-If B-Extension is implemented and provides Bit-Gather-Scatter it
-becomes really cool and easy to switch out certain indexed values
-from an array of data, but actually BGS **on its own** might be
-sufficient. Bottom line, this is complex, and needs a proper analysis.
-The other sections are pretty straightforward.*
+out-of-order execution capabilities to "pre-process" instructions in
+order to keep ALU pipelines 100% occupied.
+
+By bringing that capability in, this proposal could offer a way to increase
+pipeline activity even in simpler implementations in the one key area
+which really matters: the inner loop.
+
+However when looking at much more comprehensive schemes
+"A portable specification of zero-overhead loop control hardware
+applied to embedded processors" (ZOLC), optimising only the single
+inner loop seems inadequate, tending to suggest that ZOLC may be
+better off being proposed as an entirely separate Extension.
+
+## Mask and Tagging (Predication)
+
+Tagging (aka Masks aka Predication) is a pseudo-method of implementing
+simplistic branching in a parallel fashion, by allowing execution on
+elements of a vector to be switched on or off depending on the results
+of prior operations in the same array position.
+
+The reason for considering this is simple: by *definition* it
+is not possible to perform individual parallel branches in a SIMD
+(Single-Instruction, **Multiple**-Data) context. Branches (modifying
+of the Program Counter) will result in *all* parallel data having
+a different instruction executed on it: that's just the definition of
+SIMD, and it is simply unavoidable.
+
+So these are the ways in which conditional execution may be implemented:
+
+* explicit compare and branch: BNE x, y -> offs would jump offs
+ instructions if x was not equal to y
+* explicit store of tag condition: CMP x, y -> tagbit
+* implicit (condition-code) ADD results in a carry, carry bit implicitly
+ (or sometimes explicitly) goes into a "tag" (mask) register
+
+The first of these is a "normal" branch method, which is flat-out impossible
+to parallelise without look-ahead and effectively rewriting instructions.
+This would defeat the purpose of RISC.
+
+The latter two are where parallelism becomes easy to do without complexity:
+every operation is modified to be "conditionally executed" (in an explicit
+way directly in the instruction format *or* implicitly).
+
+RVV (Vector-Extension) proposes to have *explicit* storing of the compare
+in a tag/mask register, and to *explicitly* have every vector operation
+*require* that its operation be "predicated" on the bits within an
+explicitly-named tag/mask register.
+
+SIMD (P-Extension) has not yet published precise documentation on what its
+schema is to be: there is however verbal indication at the time of writing
+that:
+
+> The "compare" instructions in the DSP/SIMD ISA proposed by Andes will
+> be executed using the same compare ALU logic for the base ISA with some
+> minor modifications to handle smaller data types. The function will not
+> be duplicated.
+
+This is an *implicit* form of predication as the base RV ISA does not have
+condition-codes or predication. By adding a CSR it becomes possible
+to also tag certain registers as "predicated if referenced as a destination".
+Example:
+
+ // in future operations from now on, if r0 is the destination use r5 as
+ // the PREDICATION register
+ SET_IMPLICIT_CSRPREDICATE r0, r5
+ // store the compares in r5 as the PREDICATION register
+ CMPEQ8 r5, r1, r2
+ // r0 is used here. ah ha! that means it's predicated using r5!
+ ADD8 r0, r1, r3
+
+With enough registers (and in RISC-V there are enough registers) some fairly
+complex predication can be set up and yet still execute without significant
+stalling, even in a simple non-superscalar architecture.
+
+(For details on how Branch Instructions would be retro-fitted to indirectly
+predicated equivalents, see Appendix)
## Conclusions
-In the above sections the four different ways where parallel instruction
+In the above sections the five different ways where parallel instruction
execution has closely and loosely inter-related implications for the ISA and
for implementors, were outlined. The pluses and minuses came out as
follows:
* Fixed vs variable parallelism: <b>variable</b>
* Implicit (indirect) vs fixed (integral) instruction bit-width: <b>indirect</b>
* Implicit vs explicit type-conversion: <b>explicit</b>
-* Implicit vs explicit inner loops: <b>implicit</b>
-* Tag or no-tag: <b>TODO</b>
+* Implicit vs explicit inner loops: <b>implicit but best done separately</b>
+* Tag or no-tag: <b>Complex but highly beneficial</b>
+
+In particular:
-In particular: variable-length vectors came out on top because of the
-high setup, teardown and corner-cases associated with the fixed width
-of SIMD. Implicit bit-width helps to extend the ISA to escape from
-former limitations and restrictions (in a backwards-compatible fashion),
-and implicit (zero-overhead) loops provide a means to keep pipelines
-potentially 100% occupied *without* requiring a super-scalar or out-of-order
-architecture.
+* variable-length vectors came out on top because of the high setup, teardown
+ and corner-cases associated with the fixed width of SIMD.
+* Implicit bit-width helps to extend the ISA to escape from
+ former limitations and restrictions (in a backwards-compatible fashion),
+ whilst also leaving implementors free to simmplify implementations
+ by using actual explicit internal parallelism.
+* Implicit (zero-overhead) loops provide a means to keep pipelines
+ potentially 100% occupied in a single-issue in-order implementation
+ i.e. *without* requiring a super-scalar or out-of-order architecture,
+ but doing a proper, full job (ZOLC) is an entirely different matter.
-Constructing a SIMD/Simple-Vector proposal based around even only these four
-(five?) requirements would therefore seem to be a logical thing to do.
+Constructing a SIMD/Simple-Vector proposal based around four of these five
+requirements would therefore seem to be a logical thing to do.
# Instruction Format
-**TODO** *basically borrow from both P and V, which should be quite simple
-to do, with the exception of Tag/no-tag, which needs a bit more
-thought. V's Section 17.19 of Draft V2.3 spec is reminiscent of B's BGS
-gather-scatterer, and, if implemented, could actually be a really useful
-way to span 8-bit up to 64-bit groups of data, where BGS as it stands
-and described by Clifford does **bits** of up to 16 width. Lots to
-look at and investigate!*
+The instruction format for Simple-V does not actually have *any* compare
+operations, *any* arithmetic, floating point or memory instructions.
+Instead it *overloads* pre-existing branch operations into predicated
+variants, and implicitly overloads arithmetic operations and LOAD/STORE
+depending on implicit CSR configurations for both vector length and
+bitwidth. This includes Compressed instructions.
+
+* For analysis of RVV see [[v_comparative_analysis]] which begins to
+ outline topologically-equivalent mappings of instructions
+* Also see Appendix "Retro-fitting Predication into branch-explicit ISA"
+ for format of Branch opcodes.
+
+**TODO**: *analyse and decide whether the implicit nature of predication
+as proposed is or is not a lot of hassle, and if explicit prefixes are
+a better idea instead. Parallelism therefore effectively may end up
+as always being 64-bit opcodes (32 for the prefix, 32 for the instruction)
+with some opportunities for to use Compressed bringing it down to 48.
+Also to consider is whether one or both of the last two remaining Compressed
+instruction codes in Quadrant 1 could be used as a parallelism prefix,
+bringing parallelised opcodes down to 32-bit and having the benefit of
+being explicit.*
+
+## Branch Instruction:
+
+[[!table data="""
+31 | 30 .. 25 |24 ... 20 | 19 15 | 14 12 | 11 .. 8 | 7 | 6 ... 0 |
+imm[12] | imm[10:5]| rs2 | rs1 | funct3 | imm[4:1] | imm[11] | opcode |
+1 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 7 |
+I/F | reserved | src2 | src1 | BPR | predicate rs3 || BRANCH |
+0 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 000 | predicate rs3 || BEQ |
+0 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 001 | predicate rs3 || BNE |
+0 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 010 | predicate rs3 || rsvd |
+0 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 011 | predicate rs3 || rsvd |
+0 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 100 | predicate rs3 || BLE |
+0 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 101 | predicate rs3 || BGE |
+0 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 110 | predicate rs3 || BLTU |
+0 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 111 | predicate rs3 || BGEU |
+1 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 000 | predicate rs3 || FEQ |
+1 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 001 | predicate rs3 || FNE |
+1 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 010 | predicate rs3 || rsvd |
+1 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 011 | predicate rs3 || rsvd |
+1 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 100 | predicate rs3 || FLT |
+1 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 101 | predicate rs3 || FLE |
+1 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 110 | predicate rs3 || rsvd |
+1 | reserved | src2 | src1 | 111 | predicate rs3 || rsvd |
+"""]]
+
+In Hwacha EECS-2015-262 Section 6.7.2 the following pseudocode is given
+for predicated compare operations of function "cmp":
+
+ for (int i=0; i<vl; ++i)
+ if ([!]preg[p][i])
+ preg[pd][i] = cmp(s1 ? vreg[rs1][i] : sreg[rs1],
+ s2 ? vreg[rs2][i] : sreg[rs2]);
+
+With associated predication, vector-length adjustments and so on,
+and temporarily ignoring bitwidth (which makes the comparisons more
+complex), this becomes:
+
+ if I/F == INT: # integer type cmp
+ pred_enabled = int_pred_enabled # TODO: exception if not set!
+ preg = int_pred_reg[rd]
+ else:
+ pred_enabled = fp_pred_enabled # TODO: exception if not set!
+ preg = fp_pred_reg[rd]
+
+ s1 = CSRvectorlen[src1] > 1;
+ s2 = CSRvectorlen[src2] > 1;
+ for (int i=0; i<vl; ++i)
+ preg[rs3][i] = cmp(s1 ? reg[src1+i] : reg[src1],
+ s2 ? reg[src2+i] : reg[src2]);
+
+Notes:
+
+* Predicated SIMD comparisons would break src1 and src2 further down
+ into bitwidth-sized chunks (see Appendix "Bitwidth Virtual Register
+ Reordering") setting Vector-Length * (number of SIMD elements) bits
+ in Predicate Register rs3 as opposed to just Vector-Length bits.
+* Predicated Branches do not actually have an adjustment to the Program
+ Counter, so all of bits 25 through 30 in every case are not needed.
+* There are plenty of reserved opcodes for which bits 25 through 30 could
+ be put to good use if there is a suitable use-case.
+* FEQ and FNE (and BEQ and BNE) are included in order to save one
+ instruction having to invert the resultant predicate bitfield.
+ FLT and FLE may be inverted to FGT and FGE if needed by swapping
+ src1 and src2 (likewise the integer counterparts).
+
+## Compressed Branch Instruction:
+
+[[!table data="""
+15..13 | 12...10 | 9..7 | 6..5 | 4..2 | 1..0 | name |
+funct3 | imm | rs10 | imm | | op | |
+3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | |
+C.BPR | pred rs3 | src1 | I/F B | src2 | C1 | |
+110 | pred rs3 | src1 | I/F 0 | src2 | C1 | P.EQ |
+111 | pred rs3 | src1 | I/F 0 | src2 | C1 | P.NE |
+110 | pred rs3 | src1 | I/F 1 | src2 | C1 | P.LT |
+111 | pred rs3 | src1 | I/F 1 | src2 | C1 | P.LE |
+"""]]
+
+Notes:
+
+* Bits 5 13 14 and 15 make up the comparator type
+* In both floating-point and integer cases there are four predication
+ comparators: EQ/NEQ/LT/LE (with GT and GE being synthesised by inverting
+ src1 and src2).
+
+## LOAD / STORE Instructions
+
+For full analysis of topological adaptation of RVV LOAD/STORE
+see [[v_comparative_analysis]]. All three types (LD, LD.S and LD.X)
+may be implicitly overloaded into the one base RV LOAD instruction.
+
+Revised LOAD:
+
+[[!table data="""
+31 | 30 | 29 25 | 24 20 | 19 15 | 14 12 | 11 7 | 6 0 |
+imm[11:0] |||| rs1 | funct3 | rd | opcode |
+1 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 7 |
+? | s | rs2 | imm[4:0] | base | width | dest | LOAD |
+"""]]
+
+The exact same corresponding adaptation is also carried out on the single,
+double and quad precision floating-point LOAD-FP and STORE-FP operations,
+which fit the exact same instruction format. Thus all three types
+(unit, stride and indexed) may be fitted into FLW, FLD and FLQ,
+as well as FSW, FSD and FSQ.
+
+Notes:
+
+* LOAD remains functionally (topologically) identical to RVV LOAD
+ (for both integer and floating-point variants).
+* Predication CSR-marking register is not explicitly shown in instruction, it's
+ implicit based on the CSR predicate state for the rd (destination) register
+* rs2, the source, may *also be marked as a vector*, which implicitly
+ is taken to indicate "Indexed Load" (LD.X)
+* Bit 30 indicates "element stride" or "constant-stride" (LD or LD.S)
+* Bit 31 is reserved (ideas under consideration: auto-increment)
+* **TODO**: include CSR SIMD bitwidth in the pseudo-code below.
+* **TODO**: clarify where width maps to elsize
+
+Pseudo-code (excludes CSR SIMD bitwidth):
+
+ if (unit-strided) stride = elsize;
+ else stride = areg[as2]; // constant-strided
+
+ pred_enabled = int_pred_enabled
+ preg = int_pred_reg[rd]
+
+ for (int i=0; i<vl; ++i)
+ if (preg_enabled[rd] && [!]preg[i])
+ for (int j=0; j<seglen+1; j++)
+ {
+ if CSRvectorised[rs2])
+ offs = vreg[rs2][i]
+ else
+ offs = i*(seglen+1)*stride;
+ vreg[rd+j][i] = mem[sreg[base] + offs + j*stride];
+ }
+
+Taking CSR (SIMD) bitwidth into account involves using the vector
+length and register encoding according to the "Bitwidth Virtual Register
+Reordering" scheme shown in the Appendix (see function "regoffs").
+
+A similar instruction exists for STORE, with identical topological
+translation of all features. **TODO**
+
+## Compressed LOAD / STORE Instructions
+
+Compressed LOAD and STORE are of the same format, where bits 2-4 are
+a src register instead of dest:
+
+[[!table data="""
+15 13 | 12 10 | 9 7 | 6 5 | 4 2 | 1 0 |
+funct3 | imm | rs10 | imm | rd0 | op |
+3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
+C.LW | offset[5:3] | base | offset[2|6] | dest | C0 |
+"""]]
+
+Unfortunately it is not possible to fit the full functionality
+of vectorised LOAD / STORE into C.LD / C.ST: the "X" variants (Indexed)
+require another operand (rs2) in addition to the operand width
+(which is also missing), offset, base, and src/dest.
+
+However a close approximation may be achieved by taking the top bit
+of the offset in each of the five types of LD (and ST), reducing the
+offset to 4 bits and utilising the 5th bit to indicate whether "stride"
+is to be enabled. In this way it is at least possible to introduce
+that functionality.
+
+(**TODO**: *assess whether the loss of one bit from offset is worth having
+"stride" capability.*)
+
+We also assume (including for the "stride" variant) that the "width"
+parameter, which is missing, is derived and implicit, just as it is
+with the standard Compressed LOAD/STORE instructions. For C.LW, C.LD
+and C.LQ, the width is implicitly 4, 8 and 16 respectively, whilst for
+C.FLW and C.FLD the width is implicitly 4 and 8 respectively.
+
+Interestingly we note that the Vectorised Simple-V variant of
+LOAD/STORE (Compressed and otherwise), due to it effectively using the
+standard register file(s), is the direct functional equivalent of
+standard load-multiple and store-multiple instructions found in other
+processors.
+
+In Section 12.3 riscv-isa manual V2.3-draft it is noted the comments on
+page 76, "For virtual memory systems some data accesses could be resident
+in physical memory and some not". The interesting question then arises:
+how does RVV deal with the exact same scenario?
# Note on implementation of parallelism
a Vector (varible-width SIM) may not precisely match the width of the
parallelism within the implementation, the end-user **should not care**
and in this way the performance benefits are gained but the ISA remains
-simple. All that happens at the end of an instruction run is: some
+straightforward. All that happens at the end of an instruction run is: some
parallel units (if there are any) would remain offline, completely
transparently to the ISA, the program, and the compiler.
The "SIMD considered harmful" trap of having huge complexity and extra
instructions to deal with corner-cases is thus avoided, and implementors
get to choose precisely where to focus and target the benefits of their
-implementationefforts..
-
-# V-Extension to Simple-V Comparative Analysis
-
-This section covers the ways in which Simple-V is comparable
-to, or more flexible than, V-Extension (V2.3-draft). Also covered is
-one major weak-point (register files are fixed size, where V is
-arbitrary length), and how best to deal with that, should V be adapted
-to be on top of Simple-V.
-
-The first stages of this section go over each of the sections of V2.3-draft V
-where appropriate
-
-## 17.3 Shape Encoding
-
-Simple-V's proposed means of expressing whether a register (from the
-standard integer or the standard floating-point file) is a scalar or
-a vector is to simply set the vector length to 1. The instruction
-would however have to specify which register file (integer or FP) that
-the vector-length was to be applied to.
-
-Extended shapes (2-D etc) would not be part of Simple-V at all.
-
-## 17.4 Representation Encoding
-
-Simple-V would not have representation-encoding. This is part of
-polymorphism, which is considered too complex to implement (TODO: confirm?)
-
-## 17.5 Element Bitwidth
-
-This is directly equivalent to Simple-V's "Packed", and implies that
-integer (or floating-point) are divided down into vector-indexable
-chunks of size Bitwidth.
-
-In this way it becomes possible to have ADD effectively and implicitly
-turn into ADDb (8-bit add), ADDw (16-bit add) and so on, and where
-vector-length has been set to greater than 1, it becomes a "Packed"
-(SIMD) instruction.
-
-It remains to be decided what should be done when RV32 / RV64 ADD (sized)
-opcodes are used. One useful idea would be, on an RV64 system where
-a 32-bit-sized ADD was performed, to simply use the least significant
-32-bits of the register (exactly as is currently done) but at the same
-time to *respect the packed bitwidth as well*.
-
-The extended encoding (Table 17.6) would not be part of Simple-V.
-
-## 17.6 Base Vector Extension Supported Types
-
-TODO: analyse. probably exactly the same.
-
-## 17.7 Maximum Vector Element Width
-
-No equivalent in Simple-V
-
-## 17.8 Vector Configuration Registers
-
-TODO: analyse.
-
-## 17.9 Legal Vector Unit Configurations
-
-TODO: analyse
-
-## 17.10 Vector Unit CSRs
-
-TODO: analyse
-
-> Ok so this is an aspect of Simple-V that I hadn't thought through,
-> yet (proposal / idea only a few days old!). in V2.3-Draft ISA Section
-> 17.10 the CSRs are listed. I note that there's some general-purpose
-> CSRs (including a global/active vector-length) and 16 vcfgN CSRs. i
-> don't precisely know what those are for.
-
-> In the Simple-V proposal, *every* register in both the integer
-> register-file *and* the floating-point register-file would have at
-> least a 2-bit "data-width" CSR and probably something like an 8-bit
-> "vector-length" CSR (less in RV32E, by exactly one bit).
-
-> What I *don't* know is whether that would be considered perfectly
-> reasonable or completely insane. If it turns out that the proposed
-> Simple-V CSRs can indeed be stored in SRAM then I would imagine that
-> adding somewhere in the region of 10 bits per register would be... okay?
-> I really don't honestly know.
-
-> Would these proposed 10-or-so-bit per-register Simple-V CSRs need to
-> be multi-ported? No I don't believe they would.
-
-## 17.11 Maximum Vector Length (MVL)
-
-Basically implicitly this is set to the maximum size of the register
-file multiplied by the number of 8-bit packed ints that can fit into
-a register (4 for RV32, 8 for RV64 and 16 for RV128).
-
-## !7.12 Vector Instruction Formats
-
-No equivalent in Simple-V because *all* instructions of *all* Extensions
-are implicitly parallelised (and packed).
-
-## 17.13 Polymorphic Vector Instructions
-
-Polymorphism (implicit type-casting) is deliberately not supported
-in Simple-V.
-
-## 17.14 Rapid Configuration Instructions
-
-TODO: analyse if this is useful to have an equivalent in Simple-V
-
-## 17.15 Vector-Type-Change Instructions
-
-TODO: analyse if this is useful to have an equivalent in Simple-V
-
-## 17.16 Vector Length
-
-Has a direct corresponding equivalent.
-
-## 17.17 Predicated Execution
-
-Predicated Execution is another name for "masking" or "tagging". Masked
-(or tagged) implies that there is a bit field which is indexed, and each
-bit associated with the corresponding indexed offset register within
-the "Vector". If the tag / mask bit is 1, when a parallel operation is
-issued, the indexed element of the vector has the operation carried out.
-However if the tag / mask bit is *zero*, that particular indexed element
-of the vector does *not* have the requested operation carried out.
-
-In V2.3-draft V, there is a significant (not recommended) difference:
-the zero-tagged elements are *set to zero*. This loses a *significant*
-advantage of mask / tagging, particularly if the entire mask register
-is itself a general-purpose register, as that general-purpose register
-can be inverted, shifted, and'ed, or'ed and so on. In other words
-it becomes possible, especially if Carry/Overflow from each vector
-operation is also accessible, to do conditional (step-by-step) vector
-operations including things like turn vectors into 1024-bit or greater
-operands with very few instructions, by treating the "carry" from
-one instruction as a way to do "Conditional add of 1 to the register
-next door". If V2.3-draft V sets zero-tagged elements to zero, such
-extremely powerful techniques are simply not possible.
-
-It is noted that there is no mention of an equivalent to BEXT (element
-skipping) which would be particularly fascinating and powerful to have.
-In this mode, the "mask" would skip elements where its mask bit was zero
-in either the source or the destination operand.
-
-Lots to be discussed.
-
-## 17.18 Vector Load/Store Instructions
-
-These may not have a direct equivalent in Simple-V, except if mask/tagging
-is to be deployed.
-
-To be discussed.
-
-## 17.19 Vector Register Gather
-
-TODO
-
-## TODO, sort
-
-> However, there are also several features that go beyond simply attaching VL
-> to a scalar operation and are crucial to being able to vectorize a lot of
-> code. To name a few:
-> - Conditional execution (i.e., predicated operations)
-> - Inter-lane data movement (e.g. SLIDE, SELECT)
-> - Reductions (e.g., VADD with a scalar destination)
-
- Ok so the Conditional and also the Reductions is one of the reasons
- why as part of SimpleV / variable-SIMD / parallelism (gah gotta think
- of a decent name) i proposed that it be implemented as "if you say r0
- is to be a vector / SIMD that means operations actually take place on
- r0,r1,r2... r(N-1)".
-
- Consequently any parallel operation could be paused (or... more
- specifically: vectors disabled by resetting it back to a default /
- scalar / vector-length=1) yet the results would actually be in the
- *main register file* (integer or float) and so anything that wasn't
- possible to easily do in "simple" parallel terms could be done *out*
- of parallel "mode" instead.
-
- I do appreciate that the above does imply that there is a limit to the
- length that SimpleV (whatever) can be parallelised, namely that you
- run out of registers! my thought there was, "leave space for the main
- V-Ext proposal to extend it to the length that V currently supports".
- Honestly i had not thought through precisely how that would work.
-
- Inter-lane (SELECT) i saw 17.19 in V2.3-Draft p117, I liked that,
- it reminds me of the discussion with Clifford on bit-manipulation
- (gather-scatter except not Bit Gather Scatter, *data* gather scatter): if
- applied "globally and outside of V and P" SLIDE and SELECT might become
- an extremely powerful way to do fast memory copy and reordering [2[.
-
- However I haven't quite got my head round how that would work: i am
- used to the concept of register "tags" (the modern term is "masks")
- and i *think* if "masks" were applied to a Simple-V-enhanced LOAD /
- STORE you would get the exact same thing as SELECT.
-
- SLIDE you could do simply by setting say r0 vector-length to say 16
- (meaning that if referred to in any operation it would be an implicit
- parallel operation on *all* registers r0 through r15), and temporarily
- set say.... r7 vector-length to say... 5. Do a LOAD on r7 and it would
- implicitly mean "load from memory into r7 through r11". Then you go
- back and do an operation on r0 and ta-daa, you're actually doing an
- operation on a SLID {SLIDED?) vector.
-
- The advantage of Simple-V (whatever) over V would be that you could
- actually do *operations* in the middle of vectors (not just SLIDEs)
- simply by (as above) setting r0 vector-length to 16 and r7 vector-length
- to 5. There would be nothing preventing you from doing an ADD on r0
- (which meant do an ADD on r0 through r15) followed *immediately in the
- next instruction with no setup cost* a MUL on r7 (which actually meant
- "do a parallel MUL on r7 through r11").
-
- btw it's worth mentioning that you'd get scalar-vector and vector-scalar
- implicitly by having one of the source register be vector-length 1
- (the default) and one being N > 1. but without having special opcodes
- to do it. i *believe* (or more like "logically infer or deduce" as
- i haven't got access to the spec) that that would result in a further
- opcode reduction when comparing [draft] V-Ext to [proposed] Simple-V.
-
- Also, Reduction *might* be possible by specifying that the destination be
- a scalar (vector-length=1) whilst the source be a vector. However... it
- would be an awful lot of work to go through *every single instruction*
- in *every* Extension, working out which ones could be parallelised (ADD,
- MUL, XOR) and those that definitely could not (DIV, SUB). Is that worth
- the effort? maybe. Would it result in huge complexity? probably.
- Could an implementor just go "I ain't doing *that* as parallel!
- let's make it virtual-parallelism (sequential reduction) instead"?
- absolutely. So, now that I think it through, Simple-V (whatever)
- covers Reduction as well. huh, that's a surprise.
-
-
-> - Vector-length speculation (making it possible to vectorize some loops with
-> unknown trip count) - I don't think this part of the proposal is written
-> down yet.
-
- Now that _is_ an interesting concept. A little scary, i imagine, with
- the possibility of putting a processor into a hard infinite execution
- loop... :)
-
-
-> Also, note the vector ISA consumes relatively little opcode space (all the
-> arithmetic fits in 7/8ths of a major opcode). This is mainly because data
-> type and size is a function of runtime configuration, rather than of opcode.
-
- yes. i love that aspect of V, i am a huge fan of polymorphism [1]
- which is why i am keen to advocate that the same runtime principle be
- extended to the rest of the RISC-V ISA [3]
-
- Yikes that's a lot. I'm going to need to pull this into the wiki to
- make sure it's not lost.
-
-[1] inherent data type conversion: 25 years ago i designed a hypothetical
-hyper-hyper-hyper-escape-code-sequencing ISA based around 2-bit
-(escape-extended) opcodes and 2-bit (escape-extended) operands that
-only required a fixed 8-bit instruction length. that relied heavily
-on polymorphism and runtime size configurations as well. At the time
-I thought it would have meant one HELL of a lot of CSRs... but then I
-met RISC-V and was cured instantly of that delusion^Wmisapprehension :)
-
-[2] Interestingly if you then also add in the other aspect of Simple-V
-(the data-size, which is effectively functionally orthogonal / identical
-to "Packed" of Packed-SIMD), masked and packed *and* vectored LOAD / STORE
-operations become byte / half-word / word augmenters of B-Ext's proposed
-"BGS" i.e. where B-Ext's BGS dealt with bits, masked-packed-vectored
-LOAD / STORE would deal with 8 / 16 / 32 bits at a time. Where it
-would get really REALLY interesting would be masked-packed-vectored
-B-Ext BGS instructions. I can't even get my head fully round that,
-which is a good sign that the combination would be *really* powerful :)
-
-[3] ok sadly maybe not the polymorphism, it's too complicated and I
-think would be much too hard for implementors to easily "slide in" to an
-existing non-Simple-V implementation. i say that despite really *really*
-wanting IEEE 704 FP Half-precision to end up somewhere in RISC-V in some
-fashion, for optimising 3D Graphics. *sigh*.
-
-## TODO: instructions (based on Hwacha) V-Ext duplication analysis
-
-This is partly speculative due to lack of access to an up-to-date
-V-Ext Spec (V2.3-draft RVV 0.4-Draft at the time of writing). However
-basin an analysis instead on Hwacha, a cursory examination shows over
-an **85%** duplication of V-Ext operand-related instructions when
-compared to Simple-V on a standard RG64G base. Even Vector Fetch
-is analogous to "zero-overhead loop".
-
-Exceptions are:
-
-* Vector Indexed Memory Instructions (non-contiguous)
-* Vector Atomic Memory Instructions.
-* Some of the Vector Arithmetic ops: MADD, MSUB,
- VSRL, VSRA, VEIDX, VFIRST, VSGNJN, VFSGNJX and potentially more.
-* Consensual Jump
-
-## TODO: sort
-
-> I suspect that the "hardware loop" in question is actually a zero-overhead
-> loop unit that diverts execution from address X to address Y if a certain
-> condition is met.
-
- not quite. The zero-overhead loop unit interestingly would be at
-an [independent] level above vector-length. The distinctions are
-as follows:
-
-* Vector-length issues *virtual* instructions where the register
- operands are *specifically* altered (to cover a range of registers),
- whereas zero-overhead loops *specifically* do *NOT* alter the operands
- in *ANY* way.
-
-* Vector-length-driven "virtual" instructions are driven by *one*
- and *only* one instruction (whether it be a LOAD, STORE, or pure
- one/two/three-operand opcode) whereas zero-overhead loop units
- specifically apply to *multiple* instructions.
-
-Where vector-length-driven "virtual" instructions might get conceptually
-blurred with zero-overhead loops is LOAD / STORE. In the case of LOAD /
-STORE, to actually be useful, vector-length-driven LOAD / STORE should
-increment the LOAD / STORE memory address to correspondingly match the
-increment in the register bank. example:
-
-* set vector-length for r0 to 4
-* issue RV32 LOAD from addr 0x1230 to r0
-
-translates effectively to:
-
-* RV32 LOAD from addr 0x1230 to r0
-* ...
-* ...
-* RV32 LOAD from addr 0x123B to r3
-
-# P-Ext ISA
-
-| Mnemonic | 16-bit Instruction |
-| ------------------ | ------------------------- |
-| ADD16 rt, ra, rb | add |
-| RADD16 rt, ra, rb | Signed Halving add |
-| URADD16 rt, ra, rb | Unsigned Halving add |
-| KADD16 rt, ra, rb | Signed Saturating add |
-| UKADD16 rt, ra, rb | Unsigned Saturating add |
-| SUB16 rt, ra, rb | sub |
-| RSUB16 rt, ra, rb | Signed Halving sub |
-
+implementation efforts, without "extra baggage".
+
+# CSRs <a name="csrs"></a>
+
+There are a number of CSRs needed, which are used at the instruction
+decode phase to re-interpret standard RV opcodes (a practice that has
+precedent in the setting of MISA to enable / disable extensions).
+
+* Integer Register N is Vector of length M: r(N) -> r(N..N+M-1)
+* Integer Register N is of implicit bitwidth M (M=default,8,16,32,64)
+* Floating-point Register N is Vector of length M: r(N) -> r(N..N+M-1)
+* Floating-point Register N is of implicit bitwidth M (M=default,8,16,32,64)
+* Integer Register N is a Predication Register (note: a key-value store)
+* Vector Length CSR (VSETVL, VGETVL)
+
+Notes:
+
+* for the purposes of LOAD / STORE, Integer Registers which are
+ marked as a Vector will result in a Vector LOAD / STORE.
+* Vector Lengths are *not* the same as vsetl but are an integral part
+ of vsetl.
+* Actual vector length is *multipled* by how many blocks of length
+ "bitwidth" may fit into an XLEN-sized register file.
+* Predication is a key-value store due to the implicit referencing,
+ as opposed to having the predicate register explicitly in the instruction.
+
+## Predication CSR
+
+The Predication CSR is a key-value store indicating whether, if a given
+destination register (integer or floating-point) is referred to in an
+instruction, it is to be predicated. The first entry is whether predication
+is enabled. The second entry is whether the register index refers to a
+floating-point or an integer register. The third entry is the index
+of that register which is to be predicated (if referred to). The fourth entry
+is the integer register that is treated as a bitfield, indexable by the
+vector element index.
+
+| RegNo | 6 | 5 | (4..0) | (4..0) |
+| ----- | - | - | ------- | ------- |
+| r0 | pren0 | i/f | regidx | predidx |
+| r1 | pren1 | i/f | regidx | predidx |
+| .. | pren.. | i/f | regidx | predidx |
+| r15 | pren15 | i/f | regidx | predidx |
+
+The Predication CSR Table is a key-value store, so implementation-wise
+it will be faster to turn the table around (maintain topologically
+equivalent state):
+
+ fp_pred_enabled[32];
+ int_pred_enabled[32];
+ for (i = 0; i < 16; i++)
+ if CSRpred[i].pren:
+ idx = CSRpred[i].regidx
+ predidx = CSRpred[i].predidx
+ if CSRpred[i].type == 0: # integer
+ int_pred_enabled[idx] = 1
+ int_pred_reg[idx] = predidx
+ else:
+ fp_pred_enabled[idx] = 1
+ fp_pred_reg[idx] = predidx
+
+So when an operation is to be predicated, it is the internal state that
+is used. In Section 6.4.2 of Hwacha's Manual (EECS-2015-262) the following
+pseudo-code for operations is given, where p is the explicit (direct)
+reference to the predication register to be used:
+
+ for (int i=0; i<vl; ++i)
+ if ([!]preg[p][i])
+ (d ? vreg[rd][i] : sreg[rd]) =
+ iop(s1 ? vreg[rs1][i] : sreg[rs1],
+ s2 ? vreg[rs2][i] : sreg[rs2]); // for insts with 2 inputs
+
+This instead becomes an *indirect* reference using the *internal* state
+table generated from the Predication CSR key-value store:
+
+ if type(iop) == INT:
+ pred_enabled = int_pred_enabled
+ preg = int_pred_reg[rd]
+ else:
+ pred_enabled = fp_pred_enabled
+ preg = fp_pred_reg[rd]
+
+ for (int i=0; i<vl; ++i)
+ if (preg_enabled[rd] && [!]preg[i])
+ (d ? vreg[rd][i] : sreg[rd]) =
+ iop(s1 ? vreg[rs1][i] : sreg[rs1],
+ s2 ? vreg[rs2][i] : sreg[rs2]); // for insts with 2 inputs
+
+## MAXVECTORDEPTH
+
+MAXVECTORDEPTH is the same concept as MVL in RVV. However in Simple-V,
+given that its primary (base, unextended) purpose is for 3D, Video and
+other purposes (not requiring supercomputing capability), it makes sense
+to limit MAXVECTORDEPTH to the regfile bitwidth (32 for RV32, 64 for RV64
+and so on).
+
+The reason for setting this limit is so that predication registers, when
+marked as such, may fit into a single register as opposed to fanning out
+over several registers. This keeps the implementation a little simpler.
+Note that RVV on top of Simple-V may choose to over-ride this decision.
+
+## Vector-length CSRs
+
+Vector lengths are interpreted as meaning "any instruction referring to
+r(N) generates implicit identical instructions referring to registers
+r(N+M-1) where M is the Vector Length". Vector Lengths may be set to
+use up to 16 registers in the register file.
+
+One separate CSR table is needed for each of the integer and floating-point
+register files:
+
+| RegNo | (3..0) |
+| ----- | ------ |
+| r0 | vlen0 |
+| r1 | vlen1 |
+| .. | vlen.. |
+| r31 | vlen31 |
+
+An array of 32 4-bit CSRs is needed (4 bits per register) to indicate
+whether a register was, if referred to in any standard instructions,
+implicitly to be treated as a vector. A vector length of 1 indicates
+that it is to be treated as a scalar. Vector lengths of 0 are reserved.
+
+Internally, implementations may choose to use the non-zero vector length
+to set a bit-field per register, to be used in the instruction decode phase.
+In this way any standard (current or future) operation involving
+register operands may detect if the operation is to be vector-vector,
+vector-scalar or scalar-scalar (standard) simply through a single
+bit test.
+
+Note that when using the "vsetl rs1, rs2" instruction (caveat: when the
+bitwidth is specifically not set) it becomes:
+
+ CSRvlength = MIN(MIN(CSRvectorlen[rs1], MAXVECTORDEPTH), rs2)
+
+This is in contrast to RVV:
+
+ CSRvlength = MIN(MIN(rs1, MAXVECTORDEPTH), rs2)
+
+## Element (SIMD) bitwidth CSRs
+
+Element bitwidths may be specified with a per-register CSR, and indicate
+how a register (integer or floating-point) is to be subdivided.
+
+| RegNo | (2..0) |
+| ----- | ------ |
+| r0 | vew0 |
+| r1 | vew1 |
+| .. | vew.. |
+| r31 | vew31 |
+
+vew may be one of the following (giving a table "bytestable", used below):
+
+| vew | bitwidth |
+| --- | -------- |
+| 000 | default |
+| 001 | 8 |
+| 010 | 16 |
+| 011 | 32 |
+| 100 | 64 |
+| 101 | 128 |
+| 110 | rsvd |
+| 111 | rsvd |
+
+Extending this table (with extra bits) is covered in the section
+"Implementing RVV on top of Simple-V".
+
+Note that when using the "vsetl rs1, rs2" instruction, taking bitwidth
+into account, it becomes:
+
+ vew = CSRbitwidth[rs1]
+ if (vew == 0)
+ bytesperreg = (XLEN/8) # or FLEN as appropriate
+ else:
+ bytesperreg = bytestable[vew] # 1 2 4 8 16
+ simdmult = (XLEN/8) / bytesperreg # or FLEN as appropriate
+ vlen = CSRvectorlen[rs1] * simdmult
+ CSRvlength = MIN(MIN(vlen, MAXVECTORDEPTH), rs2)
+
+The reason for multiplying the vector length by the number of SIMD elements
+(in each individual register) is so that each SIMD element may optionally be
+predicated.
+
+An example of how to subdivide the register file when bitwidth != default
+is given in the section "Bitwidth Virtual Register Reordering".
+
+# Exceptions
+
+> What does an ADD of two different-sized vectors do in simple-V?
+
+* if the two source operands are not the same, throw an exception.
+* if the destination operand is also a vector, and the source is longer
+ than the destination, throw an exception.
+
+> And what about instructions like JALR?
+> What does jumping to a vector do?
+
+* Throw an exception. Whether that actually results in spawning threads
+ as part of the trap-handling remains to be seen.
+
+# Comparison of "Traditional" SIMD, Alt-RVP, Simple-V and RVV Proposals <a name="parallelism_comparisons"></a>
+
+This section compares the various parallelism proposals as they stand,
+including traditional SIMD, in terms of features, ease of implementation,
+complexity, flexibility, and die area.
+
+## [[alt_rvp]]
+
+Primary benefit of Alt-RVP is the simplicity with which parallelism
+may be introduced (effective multiplication of regfiles and associated ALUs).
+
+* plus: the simplicity of the lanes (combined with the regularity of
+ allocating identical opcodes multiple independent registers) meaning
+ that SRAM or 2R1W can be used for entire regfile (potentially).
+* minus: a more complex instruction set where the parallelism is much
+ more explicitly directly specified in the instruction and
+* minus: if you *don't* have an explicit instruction (opcode) and you
+ need one, the only place it can be added is... in the vector unit and
+* minus: opcode functions (and associated ALUs) duplicated in Alt-RVP are
+ not useable or accessible in other Extensions.
+* plus-and-minus: Lanes may be utilised for high-speed context-switching
+ but with the down-side that they're an all-or-nothing part of the Extension.
+ No Alt-RVP: no fast register-bank switching.
+* plus: Lane-switching would mean that complex operations not suited to
+ parallelisation can be carried out, followed by further parallel Lane-based
+ work, without moving register contents down to memory (and back)
+* minus: Access to registers across multiple lanes is challenging. "Solution"
+ is to drop data into memory and immediately back in again (like MMX).
+
+## Simple-V
+
+Primary benefit of Simple-V is the OO abstraction of parallel principles
+from actual (internal) parallel hardware. It's an API in effect that's
+designed to be slotted in to an existing implementation (just after
+instruction decode) with minimum disruption and effort.
+
+* minus: the complexity of having to use register renames, OoO, VLIW,
+ register file cacheing, all of which has been done before but is a
+ pain
+* plus: transparent re-use of existing opcodes as-is just indirectly
+ saying "this register's now a vector" which
+* plus: means that future instructions also get to be inherently
+ parallelised because there's no "separate vector opcodes"
+* plus: Compressed instructions may also be (indirectly) parallelised
+* minus: the indirect nature of Simple-V means that setup (setting
+ a CSR register to indicate vector length, a separate one to indicate
+ that it is a predicate register and so on) means a little more setup
+ time than Alt-RVP or RVV's "direct and within the (longer) instruction"
+ approach.
+* plus: shared register file meaning that, like Alt-RVP, complex
+ operations not suited to parallelisation may be carried out interleaved
+ between parallelised instructions *without* requiring data to be dropped
+ down to memory and back (into a separate vectorised register engine).
+* plus-and-maybe-minus: re-use of integer and floating-point 32-wide register
+ files means that huge parallel workloads would use up considerable
+ chunks of the register file. However in the case of RV64 and 32-bit
+ operations, that effectively means 64 slots are available for parallel
+ operations.
+* plus: inherent parallelism (actual parallel ALUs) doesn't actually need to
+ be added, yet the instruction opcodes remain unchanged (and still appear
+ to be parallel). consistent "API" regardless of actual internal parallelism:
+ even an in-order single-issue implementation with a single ALU would still
+ appear to have parallel vectoristion.
+* hard-to-judge: if actual inherent underlying ALU parallelism is added it's
+ hard to say if there would be pluses or minuses (on die area). At worse it
+ would be "no worse" than existing register renaming, OoO, VLIW and register
+ file cacheing schemes.
+
+## RVV (as it stands, Draft 0.4 Section 17, RISC-V ISA V2.3-Draft)
+
+RVV is extremely well-designed and has some amazing features, including
+2D reorganisation of memory through LOAD/STORE "strides".
+
+* plus: regular predictable workload means that implementations may
+ streamline effects on L1/L2 Cache.
+* plus: regular and clear parallel workload also means that lanes
+ (similar to Alt-RVP) may be used as an implementation detail,
+ using either SRAM or 2R1W registers.
+* plus: separate engine with no impact on the rest of an implementation
+* minus: separate *complex* engine with no RTL (ALUs, Pipeline stages) reuse
+ really feasible.
+* minus: no ISA abstraction or re-use either: additions to other Extensions
+ do not gain parallelism, resulting in prolific duplication of functionality
+ inside RVV *and out*.
+* minus: when operations require a different approach (scalar operations
+ using the standard integer or FP regfile) an entire vector must be
+ transferred out to memory, into standard regfiles, then back to memory,
+ then back to the vector unit, this to occur potentially multiple times.
+* minus: will never fit into Compressed instruction space (as-is. May
+ be able to do so if "indirect" features of Simple-V are partially adopted).
+* plus-and-slight-minus: extended variants may address up to 256
+ vectorised registers (requires 48/64-bit opcodes to do it).
+* minus-and-partial-plus: separate engine plus complexity increases
+ implementation time and die area, meaning that adoption is likely only
+ to be in high-performance specialist supercomputing (where it will
+ be absolutely superb).
+
+## Traditional SIMD
+
+The only really good things about SIMD are how easy it is to implement and
+get good performance. Unfortunately that makes it quite seductive...
+
+* plus: really straightforward, ALU basically does several packed operations
+ at once. Parallelism is inherent at the ALU, making the addition of
+ SIMD-style parallelism an easy decision that has zero significant impact
+ on the rest of any given architectural design and layout.
+* plus (continuation): SIMD in simple in-order single-issue designs can
+ therefore result in superb throughput, easily achieved even with a very
+ simple execution model.
+* minus: ridiculously complex setup and corner-cases that disproportionately
+ increase instruction count on what would otherwise be a "simple loop",
+ should the number of elements in an array not happen to exactly match
+ the SIMD group width.
+* minus: getting data usefully out of registers (if separate regfiles
+ are used) means outputting to memory and back.
+* minus: quite a lot of supplementary instructions for bit-level manipulation
+ are needed in order to efficiently extract (or prepare) SIMD operands.
+* minus: MASSIVE proliferation of ISA both in terms of opcodes in one
+ dimension and parallelism (width): an at least O(N^2) and quite probably
+ O(N^3) ISA proliferation that often results in several thousand
+ separate instructions. all requiring separate and distinct corner-case
+ algorithms!
+* minus: EVEN BIGGER proliferation of SIMD ISA if the functionality of
+ 8, 16, 32 or 64-bit reordering is built-in to the SIMD instruction.
+ For example: add (high|low) 16-bits of r1 to (low|high) of r2 requires
+ four separate and distinct instructions: one for (r1:low r2:high),
+ one for (r1:high r2:low), one for (r1:high r2:high) and one for
+ (r1:low r2:low) *per function*.
+* minus: EVEN BIGGER proliferation of SIMD ISA if there is a mismatch
+ between operand and result bit-widths. In combination with high/low
+ proliferation the situation is made even worse.
+* minor-saving-grace: some implementations *may* have predication masks
+ that allow control over individual elements within the SIMD block.
+
+# Comparison *to* Traditional SIMD: Alt-RVP, Simple-V and RVV Proposals <a name="simd_comparison"></a>
+
+This section compares the various parallelism proposals as they stand,
+*against* traditional SIMD as opposed to *alongside* SIMD. In other words,
+the question is asked "How can each of the proposals effectively implement
+(or replace) SIMD, and how effective would they be"?
+
+## [[alt_rvp]]
+
+* Alt-RVP would not actually replace SIMD but would augment it: just as with
+ a SIMD architecture where the ALU becomes responsible for the parallelism,
+ Alt-RVP ALUs would likewise be so responsible... with *additional*
+ (lane-based) parallelism on top.
+* Thus at least some of the downsides of SIMD ISA O(N^3) proliferation by
+ at least one dimension are avoided (architectural upgrades introducing
+ 128-bit then 256-bit then 512-bit variants of the exact same 64-bit
+ SIMD block)
+* Thus, unfortunately, Alt-RVP would suffer the same inherent proliferation
+ of instructions as SIMD, albeit not quite as badly (due to Lanes).
+* In the same discussion for Alt-RVP, an additional proposal was made to
+ be able to subdivide the bits of each register lane (columns) down into
+ arbitrary bit-lengths (RGB 565 for example).
+* A recommendation was given instead to make the subdivisions down to 32-bit,
+ 16-bit or even 8-bit, effectively dividing the registerfile into
+ Lane0(H), Lane0(L), Lane1(H) ... LaneN(L) or further. If inter-lane
+ "swapping" instructions were then introduced, some of the disadvantages
+ of SIMD could be mitigated.
+
+## RVV
+
+* RVV is designed to replace SIMD with a better paradigm: arbitrary-length
+ parallelism.
+* However whilst SIMD is usually designed for single-issue in-order simple
+ DSPs with a focus on Multimedia (Audio, Video and Image processing),
+ RVV's primary focus appears to be on Supercomputing: optimisation of
+ mathematical operations that fit into the OpenCL space.
+* Adding functions (operations) that would normally fit (in parallel)
+ into a SIMD instruction requires an equivalent to be added to the
+ RVV Extension, if one does not exist. Given the specialist nature of
+ some SIMD instructions (8-bit or 16-bit saturated or halving add),
+ this possibility seems extremely unlikely to occur, even if the
+ implementation overhead of RVV were acceptable (compared to
+ normal SIMD/DSP-style single-issue in-order simplicity).
+
+## Simple-V
+
+* Simple-V borrows hugely from RVV as it is intended to be easy to
+ topologically transplant every single instruction from RVV (as
+ designed) into Simple-V equivalents, with *zero loss of functionality
+ or capability*.
+* With the "parallelism" abstracted out, a hypothetical SIMD-less "DSP"
+ Extension which contained the basic primitives (non-parallelised
+ 8, 16 or 32-bit SIMD operations) inherently *become* parallel,
+ automatically.
+* Additionally, standard operations (ADD, MUL) that would normally have
+ to have special SIMD-parallel opcodes added need no longer have *any*
+ of the length-dependent variants (2of 32-bit ADDs in a 64-bit register,
+ 4of 32-bit ADDs in a 128-bit register) because Simple-V takes the
+ *standard* RV opcodes (present and future) and automatically parallelises
+ them.
+* By inheriting the RVV feature of arbitrary vector-length, then just as
+ with RVV the corner-cases and ISA proliferation of SIMD is avoided.
+* Whilst not entirely finalised, registers are expected to be
+ capable of being subdivided down to an implementor-chosen bitwidth
+ in the underlying hardware (r1 becomes r1[31..24] r1[23..16] r1[15..8]
+ and r1[7..0], or just r1[31..16] r1[15..0]) where implementors can
+ choose to have separate independent 8-bit ALUs or dual-SIMD 16-bit
+ ALUs that perform twin 8-bit operations as they see fit, or anything
+ else including no subdivisions at all.
+* Even though implementors have that choice even to have full 64-bit
+ (with RV64) SIMD, they *must* provide predication that transparently
+ switches off appropriate units on the last loop, thus neatly fitting
+ underlying SIMD ALU implementations *into* the arbitrary vector-length
+ RVV paradigm, keeping the uniform consistent API that is a key strategic
+ feature of Simple-V.
+* With Simple-V fitting into the standard register files, certain classes
+ of SIMD operations such as High/Low arithmetic (r1[31..16] + r2[15..0])
+ can be done by applying *Parallelised* Bit-manipulation operations
+ followed by parallelised *straight* versions of element-to-element
+ arithmetic operations, even if the bit-manipulation operations require
+ changing the bitwidth of the "vectors" to do so. Predication can
+ be utilised to skip high words (or low words) in source or destination.
+* In essence, the key downside of SIMD - massive duplication of
+ identical functions over time as an architecture evolves from 32-bit
+ wide SIMD all the way up to 512-bit, is avoided with Simple-V, through
+ vector-style parallelism being dropped on top of 8-bit or 16-bit
+ operations, all the while keeping a consistent ISA-level "API" irrespective
+ of implementor design choices (or indeed actual implementations).
+
+# Impementing V on top of Simple-V
+
+* Number of Offset CSRs extends from 2
+* Extra register file: vector-file
+* Setup of Vector length and bitwidth CSRs now can specify vector-file
+ as well as integer or float file.
+* Extend CSR tables (bitwidth) with extra bits
+* TODO
+
+# Implementing P (renamed to DSP) on top of Simple-V
+
+* Implementors indicate chosen bitwidth support in Vector-bitwidth CSR
+ (caveat: anything not specified drops through to software-emulation / traps)
+* TODO
+
+# Appendix
+
+## V-Extension to Simple-V Comparative Analysis
+
+This section has been moved to its own page [[v_comparative_analysis]]
+
+## P-Ext ISA
+
+This section has been moved to its own page [[p_comparative_analysis]]
+
+## Example of vector / vector, vector / scalar, scalar / scalar => vector add
+
+ register CSRvectorlen[XLEN][4]; # not quite decided yet about this one...
+ register CSRpredicate[XLEN][4]; # 2^4 is max vector length
+ register CSRreg_is_vectorised[XLEN]; # just for fun support scalars as well
+ register x[32][XLEN];
+
+ function op_add(rd, rs1, rs2, predr)
+ {
+ /* note that this is ADD, not PADD */
+ int i, id, irs1, irs2;
+ # checks CSRvectorlen[rd] == CSRvectorlen[rs] etc. ignored
+ # also destination makes no sense as a scalar but what the hell...
+ for (i = 0, id=0, irs1=0, irs2=0; i<CSRvectorlen[rd]; i++)
+ if (CSRpredicate[predr][i]) # i *think* this is right...
+ x[rd+id] <= x[rs1+irs1] + x[rs2+irs2];
+ # now increment the idxs
+ if (CSRreg_is_vectorised[rd]) # bitfield check rd, scalar/vector?
+ id += 1;
+ if (CSRreg_is_vectorised[rs1]) # bitfield check rs1, scalar/vector?
+ irs1 += 1;
+ if (CSRreg_is_vectorised[rs2]) # bitfield check rs2, scalar/vector?
+ irs2 += 1;
+ }
+
+## Retro-fitting Predication into branch-explicit ISA <a name="predication_retrofit"></a>
+
+One of the goals of this parallelism proposal is to avoid instruction
+duplication. However, with the base ISA having been designed explictly
+to *avoid* condition-codes entirely, shoe-horning predication into it
+bcomes quite challenging.
+
+However what if all branch instructions, if referencing a vectorised
+register, were instead given *completely new analogous meanings* that
+resulted in a parallel bit-wise predication register being set? This
+would have to be done for both C.BEQZ and C.BNEZ, as well as BEQ, BNE,
+BLT and BGE.
+
+We might imagine that FEQ, FLT and FLT would also need to be converted,
+however these are effectively *already* in the precise form needed and
+do not need to be converted *at all*! The difference is that FEQ, FLT
+and FLE *specifically* write a 1 to an integer register if the condition
+holds, and 0 if not. All that needs to be done here is to say, "if
+the integer register is tagged with a bit that says it is a predication
+register, the **bit** in the integer register is set based on the
+current vector index" instead.
+
+There is, in the standard Conditional Branch instruction, more than
+adequate space to interpret it in a similar fashion:
+
+[[!table data="""
+ 31 |30 ..... 25 |24 ... 20 | 19 ... 15 | 14 ...... 12 | 11 ....... 8 | 7 | 6 ....... 0 |
+imm[12] | imm[10:5] | rs2 | rs1 | funct3 | imm[4:1] | imm[11] | opcode |
+ 1 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 7 |
+ offset[12,10:5] || src2 | src1 | BEQ | offset[11,4:1] || BRANCH |
+"""]]
+
+This would become:
+
+[[!table data="""
+31 | 30 .. 25 |24 ... 20 | 19 15 | 14 12 | 11 .. 8 | 7 | 6 ... 0 |
+imm[12] | imm[10:5]| rs2 | rs1 | funct3 | imm[4:1] | imm[11] | opcode |
+1 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 7 |
+reserved || src2 | src1 | BEQ | predicate rs3 || BRANCH |
+"""]]
+
+Similarly the C.BEQZ and C.BNEZ instruction format may be retro-fitted,
+with the interesting side-effect that there is space within what is presently
+the "immediate offset" field to reinterpret that to add in not only a bit
+field to distinguish between floating-point compare and integer compare,
+not only to add in a second source register, but also use some of the bits as
+a predication target as well.
+
+[[!table data="""
+15 ...... 13 | 12 ........... 10 | 9..... 7 | 6 ................. 2 | 1 .. 0 |
+ funct3 | imm | rs10 | imm | op |
+ 3 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 2 |
+ C.BEQZ | offset[8,4:3] | src | offset[7:6,2:1,5] | C1 |
+"""]]
+
+Now uses the CS format:
+
+[[!table data="""
+15 ...... 13 | 12 ........... 10 | 9..... 7 | 6 .. 5 | 4......... 2 | 1 .. 0 |
+ funct3 | imm | rs10 | imm | | op |
+ 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
+ C.BEQZ | predicate rs3 | src1 | I/F B | src2 | C1 |
+"""]]
+
+Bit 6 would be decoded as "operation refers to Integer or Float" including
+interpreting src1 and src2 accordingly as outlined in Table 12.2 of the
+"C" Standard, version 2.0,
+whilst Bit 5 would allow the operation to be extended, in combination with
+funct3 = 110 or 111: a combination of four distinct (predicated) comparison
+operators. In both floating-point and integer cases those could be
+EQ/NEQ/LT/LE (with GT and GE being synthesised by inverting src1 and src2).
+
+## Register reordering <a name="register_reordering"></a>
+
+### Register File
+
+| Reg Num | Bits |
+| ------- | ---- |
+| r0 | (32..0) |
+| r1 | (32..0) |
+| r2 | (32..0) |
+| r3 | (32..0) |
+| r4 | (32..0) |
+| r5 | (32..0) |
+| r6 | (32..0) |
+| r7 | (32..0) |
+| .. | (32..0) |
+| r31| (32..0) |
+
+### Vectorised CSR
+
+May not be an actual CSR: may be generated from Vector Length CSR:
+single-bit is less burdensome on instruction decode phase.
+
+| 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
+| - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
+| 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
+
+### Vector Length CSR
+
+| Reg Num | (3..0) |
+| ------- | ---- |
+| r0 | 2 |
+| r1 | 0 |
+| r2 | 1 |
+| r3 | 1 |
+| r4 | 3 |
+| r5 | 0 |
+| r6 | 0 |
+| r7 | 1 |
+
+### Virtual Register Reordering
+
+This example assumes the above Vector Length CSR table
+
+| Reg Num | Bits (0) | Bits (1) | Bits (2) |
+| ------- | -------- | -------- | -------- |
+| r0 | (32..0) | (32..0) |
+| r2 | (32..0) |
+| r3 | (32..0) |
+| r4 | (32..0) | (32..0) | (32..0) |
+| r7 | (32..0) |
+
+### Bitwidth Virtual Register Reordering
+
+This example goes a little further and illustrates the effect that a
+bitwidth CSR has been set on a register. Preconditions:
+
+* RV32 assumed
+* CSRintbitwidth[2] = 010 # integer r2 is 16-bit
+* CSRintvlength[2] = 3 # integer r2 is a vector of length 3
+* vsetl rs1, 5 # set the vector length to 5
+
+This is interpreted as follows:
+
+* Given that the context is RV32, ELEN=32.
+* With ELEN=32 and bitwidth=16, the number of SIMD elements is 2
+* Therefore the actual vector length is up to *six* elements
+* However vsetl sets a length 5 therefore the last "element" is skipped
+
+So when using an operation that uses r2 as a source (or destination)
+the operation is carried out as follows:
+
+* 16-bit operation on r2(15..0) - vector element index 0
+* 16-bit operation on r2(31..16) - vector element index 1
+* 16-bit operation on r3(15..0) - vector element index 2
+* 16-bit operation on r3(31..16) - vector element index 3
+* 16-bit operation on r4(15..0) - vector element index 4
+* 16-bit operation on r4(31..16) **NOT** carried out due to length being 5
+
+Predication has been left out of the above example for simplicity, however
+predication is ANDed with the latter stages (vsetl not equal to maximum
+capacity).
+
+Note also that it is entirely an implementor's choice as to whether to have
+actual separate ALUs down to the minimum bitwidth, or whether to have something
+more akin to traditional SIMD (at any level of subdivision: 8-bit SIMD
+operations carried out 32-bits at a time is perfectly acceptable, as is
+8-bit SIMD operations carried out 16-bits at a time requiring two ALUs).
+Regardless of the internal parallelism choice, *predication must
+still be respected*, making Simple-V in effect the "consistent public API".
+
+vew may be one of the following (giving a table "bytestable", used below):
+
+| vew | bitwidth |
+| --- | -------- |
+| 000 | default |
+| 001 | 8 |
+| 010 | 16 |
+| 011 | 32 |
+| 100 | 64 |
+| 101 | 128 |
+| 110 | rsvd |
+| 111 | rsvd |
+
+Pseudocode for vector length taking CSR SIMD-bitwidth into account:
+
+ vew = CSRbitwidth[rs1]
+ if (vew == 0)
+ bytesperreg = (XLEN/8) # or FLEN as appropriate
+ else:
+ bytesperreg = bytestable[vew] # 1 2 4 8 16
+ simdmult = (XLEN/8) / bytesperreg # or FLEN as appropriate
+ vlen = CSRvectorlen[rs1] * simdmult
+
+To index an element in a register rnum where the vector element index is i:
+
+ function regoffs(rnum, i):
+ regidx = floor(i / simdmult) # integer-div rounded down
+ byteidx = i % simdmult # integer-remainder
+ return rnum + regidx, # actual real register
+ byteidx * 8, # low
+ byteidx * 8 + (vew-1), # high
+
+### Example Instruction translation: <a name="example_translation"></a>
+
+Instructions "ADD r2 r4 r4" would result in three instructions being
+generated and placed into the FILO:
+
+* ADD r2 r4 r4
+* ADD r2 r5 r5
+* ADD r2 r6 r6
+
+### Insights
+
+SIMD register file splitting still to consider. For RV64, benefits of doubling
+(quadrupling in the case of Half-Precision IEEE754 FP) the apparent
+size of the floating point register file to 64 (128 in the case of HP)
+seem pretty clear and worth the complexity.
+
+64 virtual 32-bit F.P. registers and given that 32-bit FP operations are
+done on 64-bit registers it's not so conceptually difficult. May even
+be achieved by *actually* splitting the regfile into 64 virtual 32-bit
+registers such that a 64-bit FP scalar operation is dropped into (r0.H
+r0.L) tuples. Implementation therefore hidden through register renaming.
+
+Implementations intending to introduce VLIW, OoO and parallelism
+(even without Simple-V) would then find that the instructions are
+generated quicker (or in a more compact fashion that is less heavy
+on caches). Interestingly we observe then that Simple-V is about
+"consolidation of instruction generation", where actual parallelism
+of underlying hardware is an implementor-choice that could just as
+equally be applied *without* Simple-V even being implemented.
+
+## Analysis of CSR decoding on latency <a name="csr_decoding_analysis"></a>
+
+It could indeed have been logically deduced (or expected), that there
+would be additional decode latency in this proposal, because if
+overloading the opcodes to have different meanings, there is guaranteed
+to be some state, some-where, directly related to registers.
+
+There are several cases:
+
+* All operands vector-length=1 (scalars), all operands
+ packed-bitwidth="default": instructions are passed through direct as if
+ Simple-V did not exist. Simple-V is, in effect, completely disabled.
+* At least one operand vector-length > 1, all operands
+ packed-bitwidth="default": any parallel vector ALUs placed on "alert",
+ virtual parallelism looping may be activated.
+* All operands vector-length=1 (scalars), at least one
+ operand packed-bitwidth != default: degenerate case of SIMD,
+ implementation-specific complexity here (packed decode before ALUs or
+ *IN* ALUs)
+* At least one operand vector-length > 1, at least one operand
+ packed-bitwidth != default: parallel vector ALUs (if any)
+ placed on "alert", virtual parallelsim looping may be activated,
+ implementation-specific SIMD complexity kicks in (packed decode before
+ ALUs or *IN* ALUs).
+
+Bear in mind that the proposal includes that the decision whether
+to parallelise in hardware or whether to virtual-parallelise (to
+dramatically simplify compilers and also not to run into the SIMD
+instruction proliferation nightmare) *or* a transprent combination
+of both, be done on a *per-operand basis*, so that implementors can
+specifically choose to create an application-optimised implementation
+that they believe (or know) will sell extremely well, without having
+"Extra Standards-Mandated Baggage" that would otherwise blow their area
+or power budget completely out the window.
+
+Additionally, two possible CSR schemes have been proposed, in order to
+greatly reduce CSR space:
+
+* per-register CSRs (vector-length and packed-bitwidth)
+* a smaller number of CSRs with the same information but with an *INDEX*
+ specifying WHICH register in one of three regfiles (vector, fp, int)
+ the length and bitwidth applies to.
+
+(See "CSR vector-length and CSR SIMD packed-bitwidth" section for details)
+
+In addition, LOAD/STORE has its own associated proposed CSRs that
+mirror the STRIDE (but not yet STRIDE-SEGMENT?) functionality of
+V (and Hwacha).
+
+Also bear in mind that, for reasons of simplicity for implementors,
+I was coming round to the idea of permitting implementors to choose
+exactly which bitwidths they would like to support in hardware and which
+to allow to fall through to software-trap emulation.
+
+So the question boils down to:
+
+* whether either (or both) of those two CSR schemes have significant
+ latency that could even potentially require an extra pipeline decode stage
+* whether there are implementations that can be thought of which do *not*
+ introduce significant latency
+* whether it is possible to explicitly (through quite simply
+ disabling Simple-V-Ext) or implicitly (detect the case all-vlens=1,
+ all-simd-bitwidths=default) switch OFF any decoding, perhaps even to
+ the extreme of skipping an entire pipeline stage (if one is needed)
+* whether packed bitwidth and associated regfile splitting is so complex
+ that it should definitely, definitely be made mandatory that implementors
+ move regfile splitting into the ALU, and what are the implications of that
+* whether even if that *is* made mandatory, is software-trapped
+ "unsupported bitwidths" still desirable, on the basis that SIMD is such
+ a complete nightmare that *even* having a software implementation is
+ better, making Simple-V have more in common with a software API than
+ anything else.
+
+Whilst the above may seem to be severe minuses, there are some strong
+pluses:
+
+* Significant reduction of V's opcode space: over 85%.
+* Smaller reduction of P's opcode space: around 10%.
+* The potential to use Compressed instructions in both Vector and SIMD
+ due to the overloading of register meaning (implicit vectorisation,
+ implicit packing)
+* Not only present but also future extensions automatically gain parallelism.
+* Already mentioned but worth emphasising: the simplification to compiler
+ writers and assembly-level writers of having the same consistent ISA
+ regardless of whether the internal level of parallelism (number of
+ parallel ALUs) is only equal to one ("virtual" parallelism), or is
+ greater than one, should not be underestimated.
+
+## Reducing Register Bank porting
+
+This looks quite reasonable.
+<https://www.princeton.edu/~rblee/ELE572Papers/MultiBankRegFile_ISCA2000.pdf>
+
+The main details are outlined on page 4. They propose a 2-level register
+cache hierarchy, note that registers are typically only read once, that
+you never write back from upper to lower cache level but always go in a
+cycle lower -> upper -> ALU -> lower, and at the top of page 5 propose
+a scheme where you look ahead by only 2 instructions to determine which
+registers to bring into the cache.
+
+The nice thing about a vector architecture is that you *know* that
+*even more* registers are going to be pulled in: Hwacha uses this fact
+to optimise L1/L2 cache-line usage (avoid thrashing), strangely enough
+by *introducing* deliberate latency into the execution phase.
# References
Figure 2 P17 and Section 3 on P16.
* Hwacha <https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2015/EECS-2015-262.html>
* Hwacha <https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2015/EECS-2015-263.html>
+* Vector Workshop <http://riscv.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/riscv-vector-workshop-june2015.pdf>
+* Predication <https://groups.google.com/a/groups.riscv.org/forum/#!topic/isa-dev/XoP4BfYSLXA>
+* Branch Divergence <https://jbush001.github.io/2014/12/07/branch-divergence-in-parallel-kernels.html>
+* Life of Triangles (3D) <https://jbush001.github.io/2016/02/27/life-of-triangle.html>
+* Videocore-IV <https://github.com/hermanhermitage/videocoreiv/wiki/VideoCore-IV-3d-Graphics-Pipeline>
+* Discussion proposing CSRs that change ISA definition
+ <https://groups.google.com/a/groups.riscv.org/forum/#!topic/isa-dev/InzQ1wr_3Ak>
+* Zero-overhead loops <https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/dbaa/66985cc730d4b44d79f519e96ec9c43ab5b7.pdf>
+* Multi-ported VLIW Register File Implementation <https://ce-publications.et.tudelft.nl/publications/1517_multiple_contexts_in_a_multiported_vliw_register_file_impl.pdf>
+* Fast context save/restore proposal <https://groups.google.com/a/groups.riscv.org/d/msgid/isa-dev/57F823FA.6030701%40gmail.com>
+* Register File Bank Cacheing <https://www.princeton.edu/~rblee/ELE572Papers/MultiBankRegFile_ISCA2000.pdf>
projects / libreriscv.git / blobdiff