• Paul Mackerras's avatar
    core: Use a busy signal rather than a stall · 6701e734
    Paul Mackerras authored
    
    
    This changes the instruction dependency tracking so that we can
    generate a "busy" signal from execute1 and loadstore1 which comes
    along one cycle later than the current "stall" signal.  This will
    enable us to signal busy cycles only when we need to from loadstore1.
    
    The "busy" signal from execute1/loadstore1 indicates "I didn't take
    the thing you gave me on this cycle", as distinct from the previous
    stall signal which meant "I took that but don't give me anything
    next cycle".  That means that decode2 proactively gives execute1
    a new instruction as soon as it has taken the previous one (assuming
    there is a valid instruction available from decode1), and that then
    sits in decode2's output until execute1 can take it.  So instructions
    are issued by decode2 somewhat earlier than they used to be.
    
    Decode2 now only signals a stall upstream when its output buffer is
    full, meaning that we can fill up bubbles in the upstream pipe while a
    long instruction is executing.  This gives a small boost in
    performance.
    
    This also adds dependency tracking for rA updates by update-form
    load/store instructions.
    
    The GPR and CR hazard detection machinery now has one extra stage,
    which may not be strictly necessary.  Some of the code now really
    only applies to PIPELINE_DEPTH=1.
    Signed-off-by: default avatarPaul Mackerras <paulus@ozlabs.org>
    6701e734
control.vhdl 9.15 KB