mirror of
https://github.com/antonblanchard/microwatt.git
synced 2026-04-17 00:00:48 +00:00
81d777be02
Currently we don't get the result from a load that hits in the dcache until the fourth cycle after the instruction was presented to loadstore1. This trims this back to 3 cycles by taking the low order bits of the address generated in loadstore1 into dcache directly (not via the output register of loadstore1) and using them to address the read port of the dcache data RAM. We use the lower 12 address bits here in the expectation that any reasonable data cache design will have a set size of 4kB or less in order to avoid the aliasing problems that can arise with a virtually-indexed physically-tagged cache if the set size is greater than the smallest page size provided by the MMU. With this we can get rid of r2 and drive the signals going to writeback from r1, since the load hit data is now available one cycle earlier. We need a multiplexer on the read address of the data cache RAM in order to handle the second doubleword of an unaligned access. One small complication is that we now need an extra cycle in the case of an unaligned load which misses in the data cache and which reads the 2nd-last and last doublewords of a cache line. This is the reason for the PRE_NEXT_DWORD state; if we just go straight to NEXT_DWORD then we end up having the write of the last doubleword of the cache line and the read of that same doubleword occurring in the same cycle, which means we read stale data rather than the just-fetched data. Signed-off-by: Paul Mackerras <paulus@ozlabs.org>
Microwatt
A tiny Open POWER ISA softcore written in VHDL 2008. It aims to be simple and easy to understand.
Simulation using ghdl
You can try out Microwatt/Micropython without hardware by using the ghdl simulator. If you want to build directly for a hardware target board, see below.
- Build micropython. If you aren't building on a ppc64le box you will need a cross compiler. If it isn't available on your distro grab the powerpc64le-power8 toolchain from https://toolchains.bootlin.com
git clone https://github.com/micropython/micropython.git
cd micropython
cd ports/powerpc
make -j$(nproc)
cd ../../../
A prebuilt micropython image is also available in the micropython/ directory.
-
Microwatt uses ghdl for simulation. Either install this from your distro or build it. Microwatt requires ghdl to be built with the LLVM or gcc backend, which not all distros do (Fedora does, Debian/Ubuntu appears not to). ghdl with the LLVM backend is likely easier to build.
If building ghdl from scratch is too much for you, the microwatt Makefile supports using Docker or podman images. Read through the Makefile for details.
-
Next build microwatt:
git clone https://github.com/antonblanchard/microwatt
cd microwatt
make
- Link in the micropython image:
ln -s ../micropython/ports/powerpc/build/firmware.bin main_ram.bin
Or if you were using the pre-built image:
ln -s micropython/firmware.bin main_ram.bin
- Now run microwatt, sending debug output to /dev/null:
./core_tb > /dev/null
Synthesis on Xilinx FPGAs using Vivado
-
Install Vivado (I'm using the free 2019.1 webpack edition).
-
Setup Vivado paths:
source /opt/Xilinx/Vivado/2019.1/settings64.sh
- Install FuseSoC:
pip3 install --user -U fusesoc
Fedora users can get FuseSoC package via
sudo dnf copr enable sharkcz/danny
sudo dnf install fusesoc
- Create a working directory and point FuseSoC at microwatt:
mkdir microwatt-fusesoc
cd microwatt-fusesoc
fusesoc library add microwatt /path/to/microwatt/
- Build using FuseSoC. For hello world (Replace nexys_video with your FPGA board such as --target=arty_a7-100):
fusesoc run --target=nexys_video microwatt --memory_size=8192 --ram_init_file=/path/to/microwatt/fpga/hello_world.hex
You should then be able to see output via the serial port of the board (/dev/ttyUSB1, 115200 for example assuming standard clock speeds). There is a know bug where initial output may not be sent - try the reset (not programming button on your board if you don't see anything.
- To build micropython (currently requires 1MB of BRAM eg an Artix-7 A200):
fusesoc run --target=nexys_video microwatt
Testing
- A simple test suite containing random execution test cases and a couple of micropython test cases can be run with:
make -j$(nproc) check
Issues
This is functional, but very simple. We still have quite a lot to do:
- There are a few instructions still to be implemented
- Need to add caches and bypassing (in progress)
- Need to add supervisor state (in progress)