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.
All parameters that are required in the output are now emitted as
'static constexpr, except for string or array of strings parameters,
which are still emitted as 'static const' (required as std::string is
not a literal type, so cannot be constexpr). This simplifies handling
of parameters and supports 'real' parameters.
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.
This used to be done in the constructor of the top module, but there is
no reason to do it there. Internals are cleaner with this in the Sym
constructor. No functional change intended.
What previously used to be per module static constants created in
V3Table and V3Prelim are now merged globally within the whole model and
emitted as part of a separate constant pool. Members of the constant
pool are global variables which are declared lazily when used (similar to
loose methods).
** Add simulation context (VerilatedContext) to allow multiple fully independent
models to be in the same process. Please see the updated examples.
** Add context->time() and context->timeInc() API calls, to set simulation time.
These now are recommended in place of the legacy sc_time_stamp().
Geza Lore
Wilson Snyder
Mariusz Glebocki
Todd Strader