[RFC PATCH v2 02/67] Hexagon README

[Taylor Simpson]

Gives an introduction and overview to the Hexagon target

Signed-off-by: Taylor Simpson <address@hidden>
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+Hexagon is Qualcomm's very long instruction word (VLIW) digital signal
+processor(DSP).  We also support Hexagon Vector eXtensions (HVX).  HVX
+is a wide vector coprocessor designed for high performance computer vision,
+image processing, machine learning, and other workloads.
+
+The following versions of the Hexagon core are supported
+    Scalar core: v67
+    
https://developer.qualcomm.com/downloads/qualcomm-hexagon-v67-programmer-s-reference-manual
+    HVX extension: v66
+    
https://developer.qualcomm.com/downloads/qualcomm-hexagon-v66-hvx-programmer-s-reference-manual
+
+We presented an overview of the project at the 2019 KVM Forum.
+    
https://kvmforum2019.sched.com/event/Tmwc/qemu-hexagon-automatic-translation-of-the-isa-manual-pseudcode-to-tiny-code-instructions-of-a-vliw-architecture-niccolo-izzo-revng-taylor-simpson-qualcomm-innovation-center
+
+*** Tour of the code ***
+
+The qemu-hexagon implementation is a combination of qemu and the Hexagon
+architecture library (aka archlib).  The three primary directories with
+Hexagon-specific code are
+
+    qemu/target/hexagon
+        This has all the instruction and packet semantics
+    qemu/target/hexagon/imported
+        These files are imported with very little modification from archlib
+        *.idef                  Instruction semantics definition
+        macros.def              Mapping of macros to instruction attributes
+        encode*.def             Encoding patterns for each instruction
+        iclass.def              Instruction class definitions used to determine
+                                legal VLIW slots for each instruction
+    qemu/linux-user/hexagon
+        Helpers for loading the ELF file and making Linux system calls,
+        signals, etc
+
+We start with a script that generates qemu helper for each instruction.  This
+is a two step process.  The first step is to use the C preprocessor to expand
+macros inside the architecture definition files.  This is done in
+target/hexagon/semantics.c.  This step produces
+    <BUILD_DIR>/hexagon-linux-user/semantics_generated.pyinc.
+That file is consumed by the do_qemu.py script.  This script generates
+several files.  All of the generated files end in "_generated.*".  The
+primary file produced is
+    <BUILD_DIR>/hexagon-linux-user/qemu_def_generated.h
+
+Qemu helper functions have 3 parts
+    DEF_HELPER declaration indicates the signature of the helper
+    gen_helper_<NAME> will generate a TCG call to the helper function
+    The helper implementation
+
+In the qemu_def_generated.h file, there is a DEF_QEMU macro for each user-space
+instruction.  The file is included several times with DEF_QEMU defined
+differently, depending on the context.  The macro has four arguments
+    The instruction tag
+    The semantics_short code
+    DEF_HELPER declaration
+    Call to the helper
+    Helper implementation
+
+Here's an example of the A2_add instruction.
+    Instruction tag        A2_add
+    Assembly syntax        "Rd32=add(Rs32,Rt32)"
+    Instruction semantics  "{ RdV=RsV+RtV;}"
+
+By convention, the operands are identified by letter
+    RdV is the destination register
+    RsV, RtV are source registers
+
+The generator uses the operand naming conventions (see large comment in
+do_qemu.py) to determine the signature of the helper function.  Here is the
+result for A2_add from qemu_def_generated.h
+
+DEF_QEMU(A2_add,{ RdV=RsV+RtV;},
+#ifndef fWRAP_A2_add
+DEF_HELPER_3(A2_add, s32, env, s32, s32)
+#endif
+,
+{
+/* A2_add */
+DECL_RREG_d(RdV, RdN, 0, 0);
+DECL_RREG_s(RsV, RsN, 1, 0);
+DECL_RREG_t(RtV, RtN, 2, 0);
+READ_RREG_s(RsV, RsN);
+READ_RREG_t(RtV, RtN);
+fWRAP_A2_add(
+do {
+gen_helper_A2_add(RdV, cpu_env, RsV, RtV);
+} while (0),
+{ RdV=RsV+RtV;});
+WRITE_RREG_d(RdN, RdV);
+FREE_RREG_d(RdV);
+FREE_RREG_s(RsV);
+FREE_RREG_t(RtV);
+/* A2_add */
+},
+#ifndef fWRAP_A2_add
+int32_t HELPER(A2_add)(CPUHexagonState *env, int32_t RsV, int32_t RtV)
+{
+uint32_t slot = 4; slot = slot;
+int32_t RdV = 0;
+{ RdV=RsV+RtV;}
+COUNT_HELPER(A2_add);
+return RdV;
+}
+#endif
+)
+
+For each operand, there are macros for DECL, FREE, READ, WRITE.  These are
+defined in macros.h.  Note that we append the operand type to the macro name,
+which allows us to specialize the TCG code tenerated.  For read-only operands,
+DECL simply declares the TCGv variable (no need for tcg_temp_local_new()),
+and READ will assign from the TCGv corresponding to the GPR, and FREE doesn't
+have to do anything.  Also, note that the WRITE macros update the disassembly
+context to be processed when the packet commits (see "Packet Semantics" below).
+
+Note the fWRAP_A2_add macro around the gen_helper call.  Each instruction has 
a fWRAP_<tag> macro that takes 2 arguments
+    gen_helper call
+    C semantics (aka short code)
+
+This allows the code generator to override the auto-generated code.  In some
+cases this is necessary for correct execution.  We can also override for
+faster emulation.  For example, calling a helper for add is more expensive
+than generating a TCG add operation.
+
+The qemu_wrap_generated.h file contains a default fWRAP_<tag> for each
+instruction.  The default is to invoke the gen_helper code.
+    #ifndef fWRAP_A2_add
+    #define fWRAP_A2_add(GENHLPR, SHORTCODE) GENHLPR
+    #endif
+
+The helper_overrides.h file has any overrides. For example,
+    #define fWRAP_A2_add(GENHLPR, SHORTCODE) \
+        tcg_gen_add_tl(RdV, RsV, RtV)
+
+This file is included twice
+1) In genptr.c, it overrides the semantics of the desired instructions
+2) In helper.h, it prevents the generation of helpers for overridden
+   instructions.  Notice the #ifndef fWRAP_A2_add above.
+
+The instruction semantics C code heavily on macros.  In cases where the C
+semantics are specified only with macros, we can override the default with
+the short semantics option and #define the macros to generate TCG code.  One
+example is Y2_dczeroa (dc == data cache, zero == zero out the cache line,
+a == address: zero out the data cache line at the given address):
+    Instruction tag        Y2_dczeroa
+    Assembly syntax        "dczeroa(Rs32)"
+    Instruction semantics  "{fEA_REG(RsV); fDCZEROA(EA);}"
+
+In helper_overrides.h, we use the shortcode
+#define fWRAP_Y2_dczeroa(GENHLPR, SHORTCODE) SHORTCODE
+
+In other cases, just a little bit of wrapper code needs to be written.
+    #define fWRAP_tmp(SHORTCODE) \
+    { \
+        TCGv tmp = tcg_temp_new(); \
+        SHORTCODE; \
+        tcg_temp_free(tmp); \
+    }
+
+For example, some load instructions use a temporary for address computation.
+The SL2_loadrd_sp instruction needs a temporary to hold the value of the stack
+pointer (r29)
+    Instruction tag        SL2_loadrd_sp
+    Assembly syntax        "Rdd8=memd(r29+#u5:3)"
+    Instruction semantics  "{fEA_RI(fREAD_SP(),uiV); fLOAD(1,8,u,EA,RddV);}"
+
+In helper_overrides.h you'll see
+    #define fWRAP_SL2_loadrd_sp(GENHLPR, SHORTCODE)      fWRAP_tmp(SHORTCODE)
+
+There are also cases where we brute force the TCG code generation.  The
+allocframe and deallocframe instructions are examples.  Other examples are
+instructions with multiple definitions.  These require special handling
+because qemu helpers can only return a single value.
+
+In addition to instruction semantics, we use a generator to create the decode
+tree.  This generation is also a two step process.  The first step is to run
+target/hexagon/gen_dectree_import.c to produce
+    <BUILD_DIR>/hexagon-linux-user/iset.py
+This file is imported by target/hexagon/dectree.py to produce
+    <BUILD_DIR>/hexagon-linux-user/dectree_generated.h
+
+*** Key Files ***
+
+cpu.h
+
+This file contains the definition of the CPUHexagonState struct.  It is the
+runtime information for each thread and contains stuff like the GPR and
+predicate registers.
+
+macros.h
+mmvec/macros.h
+
+The Hexagon arch lib relies heavily on macros for the instruction semantics.
+This is a great advantage for qemu because we can override them for different
+purposes.  You will also notice there are sometimes two definitions of a macro.
+The QEMU_GENERATE variable determines whether we want the macro to generate TCG
+code.  If QEMU_GENERATE is not defined, we want the macro to generate vanilla
+C code that will work in the helper implementation.
+
+translate.c
+
+The functions in this file generate TCG code for a translation block.  Some
+important functions in this file are
+
+    gen_start_packet - initialize the data structures for packet semantics
+    gen_commit_packet - commit the register writes, stores, etc for a packet
+    decode_packet - disassemble a packet and generate code
+
+genptr.c
+genptr_helpers.h
+helper_overrides.h
+
+These file create a function for each instruction.  It is mostly composed of
+fWRAP_<tag> definitions followed by including qemu_def_generated.h.  The
+genptr_helpers.h file contains helper functions that are invoked by the macros
+in helper_overrides.h and macros.h
+
+op_helper.c
+
+This file contains the implementations of all the helpers.  There are a few
+general purpose helpers, but most of them are generated by including
+qemu_def_generated.h.  There are also several helpers used for debugging.
+
+
+*** Packet Semantics ***
+
+VLIW packet semantics differ from serial semantics in that all input operands
+are read, then the operations are performed, then all the results are written.
+For exmaple, this packet performs a swap of registers r0 and r1
+    { r0 = r1; r1 = r0 }
+Note that the result is different if the instructions are executed serially.
+
+Packet semantics dictate that we defer any changes of state until the entire
+packet is committed.  We record the results of each instruction in a side data
+structure, and update the visible processor state when we commit the packet.
+
+The data structures are divided between the runtime state and the translation
+context.
+
+During the TCG generation (see translate.[ch]), we use the DisasContext to
+track what needs to be done during packet commit.  Here are the relevant
+fields
+
+    ctx_reg_log            list of registers written
+    ctx_reg_log_idx        index into ctx_reg_log
+    ctx_pred_log           list of predicates written
+    ctx_pred_log_idx       index into ctx_pred_log
+    ctx_store_width        width of stores (indexed by slot)
+
+During runtime, the following fields in CPUHexagonState (see cpu.h) are used
+
+    new_value             new value of a given register
+    reg_written           boolean indicating if register was written
+    new_pred_value        new value of a predicate register
+    pred_written          boolean indicating if predicate was written
+    mem_log_stores        record of the stores (indexed by slot)
+
+For Hexagon Vector eXtensions (HVX), the following fields are used
+
+    future_VRegs
+    tmp_VRegs
+    future_ZRegs
+    ZRegs_updated
+    VRegs_updated_tmp
+    VRegs_updated
+    VRegs_select
+
+*** Debugging ***
+
+You can turn on a lot of debugging by changing the HEX_DEBUG macro to 1 in
+internal.h.  This will stream a lot of information as it generates TCG and
+executes the code.
+
+To track down nasty issues with Hexagon->TCG generation, we compare the
+execution results with actual hardware running on a Hexagon Linux target.
+Run qemu with the "-d cpu" option.  Then, we can diff the results and figure
+out where qemu and hardware behave differently.
+
+The stacks are located at different locations.  We handle this by changing
+env->stack_adjust in translate.c.  First, set this to zero and run qemu.
+Then, change env->stack_adjust to the difference between the two stack
+locations.  Then rebuild qemu and run again. That will produce a very
+clean diff.
+
+Here are some handy places to set breakpoints
+
+    At the call to gen_start_packet for a given PC (note that the line number
+        might change in the future)
+        br translate.c:602 if ctx->base.pc_next == 0xdeadbeef
+    The helper function for each instruction is named helper_<TAG>, so here's
+        an example that will set a breakpoint at the start
+        br helper_V6_vgathermh
+    If you have the HEX_DEBUG macro set, the following will be useful
+        At the start of execution of a packet for a given PC
+            br helper_debug_start_packet if env->gpr[41] == 0xdeadbeef
+        At the end of execution of a packet for a given PC
+            br helper_debug_commit_end if env->this_PC == 0xdeadbeef
+
-- 
2.7.4