This patch adds IEEE-1800 compliant scheduling support for the Inactive
scheduling region used for #0 delays.
Implementing this requires that **all** IEEE-1800 active region events
are placed in the internal 'act' section. This has simulation
performance implications. It prevents some optimizations (e.g.
V3LifePost), which reduces single threaded performance. It also reduces
the available work and parallelism in the internal 'nba' section, which
reduced the effectiveness of multi-threading severely.
Performance impact on RTLMeter when using scheduling adjusted to support
proper #0 delays is ~10-20% slowdown in single-threaded mode, and ~100%
(2x slower) with --threads 4.
To avoid paying this performance penalty unconditionally, the scheduling
is only adjusted if either:
1. The input contains a statically known #0 delay
2. The input contains a variable #x delay unknown at compile time
If no #0 is present, but #x variable delays are, a ZERODLY warning is
issued advising the use of '--no-sched-zero-delay' which is a promise
by the user that none of the variable delays will evaluate to a zero
delay at run-time. This warning is turned off if '--sched-zero-delay'
is explicitly given. This is similar to the '--timing' option.
If '--no-sched-zero-delay' was used at compile time, then executing
a zero delay will fail at runtime.
A ZERODLY warning is also issued if a static #0 if found, but the user
specified '--no-sched-zero-delay'. In this case the scheduling is not
adjusted to support #0, so executing it will fail at runtime. Presumably
the user knows it won't be executed.
The intended behaviour with all this is the following:
No #0, no #var in the design (#constant is OK)
-> Same as current behaviour, scheduling not adjusted,
same code generated as before
Has static #0 and '--no-sched-zero-delay' is NOT given:
-> No warnings, scheduling adjusted so it just works, runs slow
Has static #0 and '--no-sched-zero-delay' is given:
-> ZERODLY on the #0, scheduling not adjusted, fails at runtime if hit
No static #0, but has #var and no option is given:
-> ZERODLY on the #var advising use of '--no-sched-zero-delay' or
'--sched-zero-delay' (similar to '--timing'), scheduling adjusted
assuming it can be a zero delay and it just works
No static #0, but has #var and '--no-sched-zero-delay' is given:
-> No warning, scheduling not adjusted, fails at runtime if zero delay
No static #0, but has #var and '--sched-zero-delay' is given:
-> No warning, scheduling adjusted so it just works
The only use for the clocker attribute and the AstVar::isUsedClock that
is actually necessary today for correctness is to mark top level inputs
of --lib-create blocks as being (or driving) a clock signal. Correctness
of --lib-create (and hence hierarchical blocks) actually used to depend
on having the right optimizations eliminate intermediate clocks (e.g.:
V3Gate), when the top level port was not used directly in a sensitivity
list, or marking top level signals manually via --clk or the clocker
attribute. However V3Sched::partition already needs to trace through the
logic to figure out what signals might drive a sensitivity list, so it
can very easily mark all top level inputs as such.
In this patch we remove the AstVar::attrClocker and AstVar::isUsedClock
attributes, and replace them with AstVar::isPrimaryClock, automatically
set by V3Sched::partition. This eliminates all need for manual
annotation so we are deprecating the --clk/--no-clk options and the
clocker/no_clocker attributes.
This also eliminates the opportunity for any further mis-optimization
similar to #6453.
Regarding the other uses of the removed AstVar attributes:
- As of 5.000, initial edges are triggered via a separate mechanism
applied in V3Sched, so the use in V3EmitCFunc.cpp is redundant
- Also as of 5.000, we can handle arbitrary sensitivity expressions, so
the restriction on eliminating clock signals in V3Gate is unnecessary
- Since the recent change when Dfg is applied after V3Scope, it does
perform the equivalent of GateClkDecomp, so we can delete that pass.
These are no longer required for correct scheduling. They are still
accepted for backward compatibility, but have no effect on simulation
and are dropped in the front-end. Also removed the then redundant
AstAlwaysPublic class.
Fixes#6442
Continuing the idea of decoupling the implementations of the various algorithms.
The main points:
-Move the former "processDomain" stuff, dealing with assigning combinational logic into the relevant sensitivity domains into V3OrderProcessDomains.cpp
-Move the parallel code construction in V3OrderParallel.cpp (Could combine this with some parts of V3Partition - those not called from V3Partition::finalize - but that's not for this patch).
-Move the serial code construction into V3OrderSerial.cpp
-Factored the very small common code between the parallel and serial code construction (processMoveOneLogic) into V3OrderCFuncEmitter.cpp
The typical find/if-not-exists-insert pattern can be achieved with 1
lookup instead of 2 using emplace with a sentinel value. Also maps value
initialize their values when inserted with the [] operator, this is
defined and so there is no need to explicitly insert zeroes for integer
values.
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
Geza Lore
Wilson Snyder
github action
Mariusz Glebocki
Krzysztof Bieganski
Kamil Rakoczy
HungMingWu