VCD tracing is now parallelized using the same thread pool as the model.
We achieve this by breaking the top level trace functions into multiple
top level functions (as many as --threads), and after emitting the time
stamp to the VCD file on the main thread, we execute the tracing
functions in parallel on the same thread pool as the model (which we
pass to the trace file during registration), tracing into a secondary
per thread buffer. The main thread will then stitch (memcpy) the buffers
together into the output file.
This makes the `--trace-threads` option redundant with `--trace`, which
now only affects `--trace-fst`. FST tracing uses the previous offloading
scheme.
This obviously helps a lot in VCD tracing performance, and I have seen
better than Amdahl speedup, namely I get 3.9x on XiangShan 4T (2.7x on
OpenTitan 4T).
This is a major re-design of the way code is scheduled in Verilator,
with the goal of properly supporting the Active and NBA regions of the
SystemVerilog scheduling model, as defined in IEEE 1800-2017 chapter 4.
With this change, all internally generated clocks should simulate
correctly, and there should be no more need for the `clock_enable` and
`clocker` attributes for correctness in the absence of Verilator
generated library models (`--lib-create`).
Details of the new scheduling model and algorithm are provided in
docs/internals.rst.
Implements #3278
The --prof-threads option has been split into two independent options:
1. --prof-exec, for collecting verilator_gantt and other execution
related profiling data, and
2. --prof-pgo, for collecting data needed for PGO
The implementation of execution profiling is extricated from
VlThreadPool and is now a separate class VlExecutionProfiler. This means
--prof-exec can now be used for single-threaded models (though it does
not measure a lot of things just yet). For consistency VerilatedProfiler
is renamed VlPgoProfiler. Both VlExecutionProfiler and VlPgoProfiler are
in verilated_profiler.{h/cpp}, but can be used completely independently.
Also re-worked the execution profile format so it now only emits events
without holding onto any temporaries. This is in preparation for some
future optimizations that would be hindered by the introduction of function
locals via AstText.
Also removed the Barrier event. Clearing the profile buffers is not
notably more expensive as the profiling records are trivially
destructible.
Using the 'forceable' directive in a configuration file, or the /*
verilator forceable */ metacomment on a variable declaration will
generate additional public signals that allow the specified signals to
be forced/released from the C++ code.
- Add more tests, including for tracing.
- Apply some cleaner, more generic abstractions in the implementation.
- Use clearer AstRelease which is not an assignment.
* EmitXml: Added <ccall>, <constpool>, <initarray>/<inititem>, wrapped children of <if> and <while> with <begin> elements to prevent ambiguity
* EmitXml: added signed="true" to signed basicdtypes
This patch implements #3032. Verilator creates a module representing the
SystemVerilog $root scope (V3LinkLevel::wrapTop). Until now, this was
called the "TOP" module, which also acted as the user instantiated model
class. Syms used to hold a pointer to this root module, but hold
instances of any submodule. This patch renames this root scope module
from "TOP" to "$root", and introduces a separate model class which is
now an interface class. As the root module is no longer the user
interface class, it can now be made an instance of Syms, just like any
other submodule. This allows absolute references into the root module to
avoid an additional pointer indirection resulting in a potential speedup
(about 1.5% on OpenTitan). The model class now also contains all non
design specific generated code (e.g.: eval loops, trace config, etc),
which additionally simplifies Verilator internals.
Please see the updated documentation for the model interface changes.
Wilson Snyder
Geza Lore
Ryszard Rozak
Mostafa Gamal
Gustav Svensk
William D. Jones
Arkadiusz Kozdra
Mariusz Glebocki
Huanghuang Zhou
Krzysztof Bieganski
Martin Stadler
Kamil Rakoczy
Yoda Lee
Aliaksei Chapyzhenka
Xi Zhang
Drew Ranck
Chuxuan Wang
Larry Doolittle
Jamie Iles
Raynard Qiao
Guokai Chen
HungMingWu
Adrien Le Masle
Michaël Lefebvre
Julie Schwartz
Teng Huang
Zhanglei Wang
Keith Colbert
Iru Cai
Daniel Bates
Ivan Vnučec
Steven Hugg
Felix Yan