last edited: 2024-09-30 20:10:09 +0000
Memory system
M5’s new memory system (introduced in the first 2.0 beta release) was designed with the following goals:
- Unify timing and functional accesses in timing mode. With the old memory system the timing accesses did not have data and just accounted for the time it would take to do an operation. Then a separate functional access actually made the operation visible to the system. This method was confusing, it allowed simulated components to accidentally cheat, and prevented the memory system from returning timing-dependent values, which isn’t reasonable for an execute-in-execute CPU model.
- Simplify the memory system code – remove the huge amount of templating and duplicate code.
- Make changes easier, specifically to allow other memory interconnects besides a shared bus.
For details on the new coherence protocol, introduced (along with a substantial cache model rewrite) in 2.0b4, see Coherence Protocol.
MemObjects
All objects that connect to the memory system inherit from MemObject
.
This class adds the pure virtual functions getMasterPort(const
std::string &name, PortID idx)
and getSlavePort(const std::string
&name, PortID idx)
which returns a port corresponding to the given name
and index. This interface is used to structurally connect the MemObjects
together.
Ports
The next large part of the memory system is the idea of ports. Ports are used to interface memory objects to each other. They will always come in pairs, with a MasterPort and a SlavePort, and we refer to the other port object as the peer. These are used to make the design more modular. With ports a specific interface between every type of object doesn’t have to be created. Every memory object has to have at least one port to be useful. A master module, such as a CPU, has one or more MasterPort instances. A slave module, such as a memory controller, has one or more SlavePorts. An interconnect component, such as a cache, bridge or bus, has both MasterPort and SlavePort instances.
There are two groups of functions in the port object. The send*
functions are called on the port by the object that owns that port. For
example to send a packet in the memory system a CPU would call
myPort->sendTimingReq(pkt)
. Each send function has a
corresponding recv function that is called on the ports peer. So the
implementation of the sendTimingReq()
call above would simply be
peer->recvTimingReq(pkt)
on the slave port. Using this method we only
have one virtual function call penalty but keep generic ports that can
connect together any memory system objects.
Master ports can send requests and receive responses, whereas slave ports receive requests and send responses. Due to the coherence protocol, a slave port can also send snoop requests and receive snoop responses, with the master port having the mirrored interface.
Connections
In Python, Ports are first-class attributes of simulation objects, much
like Params. Two objects can specify that their ports should be
connected using the assignment operator. Unlike a normal variable or
parameter assignment, port connections are symmetric: A.port1 =
B.port2
has the same meaning as B.port2 = A.port1
. The notion of
master and slave ports exists in the Python objects as well, and a check
is done when the ports are connected together.
Objects such as busses that have a potentially unlimited number of ports use “vector ports”. An assignment to a vector port appends the peer to a list of connections rather than overwriting a previous connection.
In C++, memory ports are connected together by the python code after all objects are instantiated.
Request
A request object encapsulates the original request issued by a CPU or I/O device. The parameters of this request are persistent throughout the transaction, so a request object’s fields are intended to be written at most once for a given request. There are a handful of constructors and update methods that allow subsets of the object’s fields to be written at different times (or not at all). Read access to all request fields is provided via accessor methods which verify that the data in the field being read is valid.
The fields in the request object are typically not available to devices in a real system, so they should normally be used only for statistics or debugging and not as architectural values.
Request object fields include:
- Virtual address. This field may be invalid if the request was issued directly on a physical address (e.g., by a DMA I/O device).
- Physical address.
- Data size.
- Time the request was created.
- The ID of the CPU/thread that caused this request. May be invalid if the request was not issued by a CPU (e.g., a device access or a cache writeback).
- The PC that caused this request. Also may be invalid if the request was not issued by a CPU.
Packet
A Packet is used to encapsulate a transfer between two objects in the memory system (e.g., the L1 and L2 cache). This is in contrast to a Request where a single Request travels all the way from the requester to the ultimate destination and back, possibly being conveyed by several different Packets along the way.
Read access to many packet fields is provided via accessor methods which verify that the data in the field being read is valid.
A packet contains the following all of which are accessed by accessors to be certain the data is valid:
- The address. This is the address that will be used to route the packet to its target (if the destination is not explicitly set) and to process the packet at the target. It is typically derived from the request object’s physical address, but may be derived from the virtual address in some situations (e.g., for accessing a fully virtual cache before address translation has been performed). It may not be identical to the original request address: for example, on a cache miss, the packet address may be the address of the block to fetch and not the request address.
- The size. Again, this size may not be the same as that of the original request, as in the cache miss scenario.
- A pointer to the data being manipulated.
- Set by
dataStatic()
,dataDynamic()
, anddataDynamicArray()
which control if the data associated with the packet is freed when the packet is, not, withdelete
, and withdelete []
respectively. - Allocated if not set by one of the above methods
allocate()
and the data is freed when the packet is destroyed. (Always safe to call). - A pointer can be retrived by calling
getPtr()
get()
andset()
can be used to manipulate the data in the packet. The get() method does a guest-to-host endian conversion and the set method does a host-to-guest endian conversion.
- Set by
- A status indicating Success, BadAddress, Not Acknowleged, and Unknown.
- A list of command attributes associated with the packet
- Note: There is some overlap in the data in the status field and the command attributes. This is largely so that a packet can be easily reinitialized when nacked or easily reused with atomic or functional accesses.
- A
SenderState
pointer which is a virtual base opaque structure used to hold state associated with the packet but specific to the sending device (e.g., an MSHR). A pointer to this state is returned in the packet’s response so that the sender can quickly look up the state needed to process it. A specific subclass would be derived from this to carry state specific to a particular sending device. - A
CoherenceState
pointer which is a virtual base opaque structure used to hold coherence-related state. A specific subclass would be derived from this to carry state specific to a particular coherence protocol. - A pointer to the request.
Access Types
There are three types of accesses supported by the ports.
- Timing - Timing accesses are the most detailed access. They reflect our best effort for realistic timing and include the modeling of queuing delay and resource contention. Once a timing request is successfully sent at some point in the future the device that sent the request will either get the response or a NACK if the request could not be completed (more below). Timing and Atomic accesses can not coexist in the memory system.
- Atomic - Atomic accesses are a faster than detailed access. They are used for fast forwarding and warming up caches and return an approximate time to complete the request without any resource contention or queuing delay. When a atomic access is sent the response is provided when the function returns. Atomic and timing accesses can not coexist in the memory system.
- Functional - Like atomic accesses functional accesses happen
instantaneously, but unlike atomic accesses they can coexist in the
memory system with atomic or timing accesses. Functional accesses
are used for things such as loading binaries, examining/changing
variables in the simulated system, and allowing a remote debugger to
be attached to the simulator. The important note is when a
functional access is received by a device, if it contains a queue of
packets all the packets must be searched for requests or responses
that the functional access is effecting and they must be updated as
appropriate. The
Packet::intersect()
andfixPacket()
methods can help with this.
Packet allocation protocol
The protocol for allocation and deallocation of Packet objects varies
depending on the access type. (We’re talking about low-level C++
new
/delete
issues here, not anything related to the coherence
protocol.)
- Atomic and Functional : The Packet object is owned by the
requester. The responder must overwrite the request packet with the
response (typically using the
Packet::makeResponse()
method). There is no provision for having multiple responders to a single request. Since the response is always generated beforesendAtomic()
orsendFunctional()
returns, the requester can allocate the Packet object statically or on the stack. - Timing : Timing transactions are composed of two one-way messages,
a request and a response. In both cases, the Packet object must be
dynamically allocated by the sender. Deallocation is the
responsibility of the receiver (or, for broadcast coherence packets,
the target device, typically memory). In the case where the receiver
of a request is generating a response, it may choose to reuse the
request packet for its response to save the overhead of calling
delete
and thennew
(and gain the convenience of usingmakeResponse()
). However, this optimization is optional, and the requester must not rely on receiving the same Packet object back in response to a request. Note that when the responder is not the target device (as in a cache-to-cache transfer), then the target device will still delete the request packet, and thus the responding cache must allocate a new Packet object for its response. Also, because the target device may delete the request packet immediately on delivery, any other memory device wishing to reference a broadcast packet past the point where the packet is delivered must make a copy of that packet, as the pointer to the packet that is delivered cannot be relied upon to stay valid.
Timing Flow control
Timing requests simulate a real memory system, so unlike functional and
atomic accesses their response is not instantaneous. Because the timing
requests are not instantaneous, flow control is needed. When a timing
packet is sent via sendTiming()
the packet may or may not be accepted,
which is signaled by returning true or false. If false is returned the
object should not attempt to sent anymore packets until it receives a
recvRetry()
call. At this time it should again try to call
sendTiming()
; however the packet may again be rejected. Note: The
original packet does not need to be resent, a higher priority packet can
be sent instead. Once sendTiming()
returns true, the packet may still
not be able to make it to its destination. For packets that require a
response (i.e. pkt->needsResponse()
is true), any memory object can
refuse to acknowledge the packet by changing its result to Nacked
and
sending it back to its source. However, if it is a response packet, this
can not be done. The true/false return is intended to be used for local
flow control, while nacking is for global flow control. In both cases a
response can not be nacked.
Response and Snoop ranges
Ranges in the memory system are handled by having devices that are
sensitive to an address range provide an implementation for
getAddrRanges
in their slave port objects. This method returns an
AddrRangeList
of addresses it responds to. When these ranges change
(e.g. from PCI configuration taking place) the device should call
sendRangeChange()
on its slave port so that the new ranges are
propagated to the entire hierarchy. This is precisely what happens
during init()
; all memory objects call sendRangeChange()
, and a
flurry of range updates occur until everyones ranges have been
propagated to all busses in the system.