RFC ls008 SVP64 Management instructions

• Funded by NLnet under the Privacy and Enhanced Trust Programme, EU Horizon2020 Grant 825310, and NGI0 Entrust No 101069594
• https://libre-soc.org/openpower/sv/
• https://libre-soc.org/openpower/sv/rfc/ls008/
• https://bugs.libre-soc.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1089
• https://git.openpower.foundation/isa/PowerISA/issues/123

Severity: Major

Status: New

Date: 24 Mar 2023

Target: v3.2B

Source: v3.0B

Books and Section affected:

    Book I, new Scalar Chapter.  (Or, new Book on "Zero-Overhead Loop Subsystem")
    Appendix E Power ISA sorted by opcode
    Appendix F Power ISA sorted by version
    Appendix G Power ISA sorted by Compliancy Subset
    Appendix H Power ISA sorted by mnemonic

Summary

    setvl    - Cray-style "Set Vector Length" instruction
    svstep   - Vertical-First Mode explicit Step and Status

Submitter: Luke Leighton (Libre-SOC)

Requester: Libre-SOC

Impact on processor:

    Addition of two new "Zero-Overhead-Loop-Control" DSP-style Vector-style
    Management Instructions which can be implemented extremely efficiently
    and effectively by inserting an additional phase between Decode and Issue.
    More complex designs are NOT adversely impacted and in fact greatly benefit

Impact on software:

    Requires support for new instructions in assembler, debuggers,
    and related tools.

Keywords:

    Cray Supercomputing, Vectorization, Zero-Overhead-Loop-Control (ZOLC),
    Scalable Vectors, Multi-Issue Out-of-Order, Sequential Programming Model,
    Digital Signal Processing (DSP)

Motivation

Power ISA is synonymous with Supercomputing and the early Supercomputers (ETA-10, ILLIAC-IV, CDC200, Cray) had Vectorization. It is therefore anomalous that Power ISA does not have Scalable Vectors. This presents the opportunity to modernise Power ISA keeping it at the top of Supercomputing.

Notes and Observations:

1. SVP64 is very much designed for ultra-light-weight Embedded use-cases all the way up to moving the bar of Supercomputing orders of magnitude above its present perception, whilst retaining at all times Sequential Programming Execution.
2. This proposal is the base for further Extensions. These include extending SVP64 onto the Scalar VSX instructions (with a LONG TERM view in 10+ years to deprecating the PackedSIMD aspects of VSX), to be discussed at a later time, the potential for extending VSX registers to 128 or beyond, and Arithmetic operations to a runtime-selectable choice of 128-bit, 256-bit, 512-bit or 1024-bit.
3. Massive reductions in instruction count of between 2x and 20x have been demonstrated with SVP64, which is far beyond anything ever achieved by any general-purpose ISA Extension added to any ISA in the history of Computing.

Changes

Add the following entries to:

• Section 1.3.2 Notation
• the Appendices of Book I
• Instructions of Book I as a new Section
• SVL-Form of Book I Section 1.6.1.6 and 1.6.2

\newpage{}

Notation, Section 1.3.2

When destination register operands (RT, RS) are prefixed by a single underscore (_RT, _RS) the variable also contains the contents of the instruction field. This avoids confusion in pseudocode when a destination register is assigned (RT <- x) but earlier it was the operand bits that were checked (if RT = 0)

\newpage{}

Links

• https://bugs.libre-soc.org/show_bug.cgi?id=213

svstep: Vertical-First Stepping and status reporting

SVL-Form

• svstep RT,RA,SVi,vf (Rc=0)
• svstep. RT,RA,SVi,vf (Rc=1)

Pseudo-code:

    if SVi[3:4] = 0b11 then
        # store pack and unpack in SVSTATE
        SVSTATE[53] <- SVi[5]
        SVSTATE[54] <- SVi[6]
        RT <- [0]*62 || SVSTATE[53:54]
    else
        # Vertical-First explicit stepping.
        step <- SVSTATE_NEXT(SVi, vf)
        RT <- [0]*57 || step

Special Registers Altered:

CR0                     (if Rc=1)

Description

svstep may be used to enquire about the REMAP Schedule and it may be used to alter Vectorization State. When vf=1 then stepping occurs. When vf=0 the enquiry is performed without altering internal state. If SVi=0, Rc=0, vf=0 the instruction is a nop.

The following Modes exist:

• SVi=0: appropriately step srcstep, dststep, subsrcstep and subdststep to the next element, taking pack and unpack into consideration.
• When SVi is 1-4 the REMAP Schedule for a given SVSHAPE may be returned in RT. SVi=1 selects SVSHAPE0 current state, through to SVi=4 selects SVSHAPE3.
• When SVi is 5, SVSTATE.srcstep is returned.
• When SVi is 6, SVSTATE.dststep is returned.
• When SVi is 7, SVSTATE.ssubstep is returned.
• When SVi is 8, SVSTATE.dsubstep is returned.
• When SVi is 0b1100 pack/unpack in SVSTATE is cleared
• When SVi is 0b1101 pack in SVSTATE is set, unpack is cleared
• When SVi is 0b1110 unpack in SVSTATE is set, pack is cleared
• When SVi is 0b1111 pack/unpack in SVSTATE are set

As this is a Single-Predicated (1P) instruction, predication may be applied to skip (or zero) elements.

• Vertical-First Mode will return the requested index (and move to the next state if vf=1)
• Horizontal-First Mode can be used to return all indices, i.e. walks through all possible states.

Vectorization of svstep itself

As a 32-bit instruction, svstep may be itself be Vector-Prefixed, as sv.svstep. This will work perfectly well in Horizontal-First as it will in Vertical-First Mode although there are caveats for the Deterministic use of looping with Sub-Vectors in Vertical-First mode.

Example: to obtain the full set of possible computed element indices use sv.svstep *RT,SVi,1 which will store all computed element indices, starting from RT. If Rc=1 then a co-result Vector of CR Fields will also be returned, comprising the "loop end-points" of each of the inner loops when either Matrix Mode or DCT/FFT is set. In other words, for example, when the xdim inner loop reaches the end and on the next iteration it will begin again at zero, the CR Field EQ will be set. With a maximum of three loops within both Matrix and DCT/FFT Modes, the CR Field's EQ bit will be set at the end of the first inner loop, the LE bit for the second, the GT bit for the outermost loop and the SO bit set on the very last element, when all loops reach their maximum extent.

Programmer's note: VL in some situations, particularly larger Matrices (5x7x3 will set MAXVL=105), will cause sv.svstep to return a considerable number of values. Under such circumstances sv.svstep/ew=8 is recommended.

Programmer's note: having conveniently obtained a pre-computed Schedule with sv.svstep, it may then be used as the input to Indexed REMAP Mode to achieve the exact same Schedule. It is evident however that before use some of the Indices may be arbitrarily altered as desired. sv.svstep helps the programmer avoid having to manually recreate Indices for certain types of common Loop patterns. In its simplest form, without REMAP (SVi=5 or SVi=6), is equivalent to the iota instruction found in other Vector ISAs

Vertical First Mode

Vertical First is effectively like an implicit single bit predicate applied to every SVP64 instruction. ONLY one element in each SVP64 Vector instruction is executed; srcstep and dststep do not increment automatically on completion of one instruction, and the Program Counter progresses immediately to the next instruction just as it would for any standard scalar v3.0B instruction.

A mode of srcstep (SVi=0) is called which can move srcstep and dststep on to the next element, still respecting predicate masks.

In other words, where normal SVP64 Vectorization acts "horizontally" by looping first through 0 to VL-1 and only then moving the PC to the next instruction, Vertical-First moves the PC onwards (vertically) through multiple instructions with the same srcstep and dststep, then an explict instruction used to advance srcstep/dststep. An outer loop is expected to be used (branch instruction) which completes a series of Vector operations.

Testing any end condition of any loop of any REMAP state allows branches to be used to create loops.

Programmer's note: when Predicate Non-Zeroing is used this indicates to the underlying hardware that any masked-out element must be skipped. This includes in Vertical-First Mode, and programmers should be keenly aware that srcstep or dststep or both may jump by more than one as a result, because the actual request under these circumstances was to execute on the first available next non-masked-out element. It should be evident that it is the sv.svstep instruction that must be Predicated in order for the entire loop to use the Predicate correctly, and it is strongly recommended for all instructions within the same Vertical-First Loop to utilise the exact same Predicate Mask(s).

Programmers should be aware that VL, srcstep and dststep and the SUBVL substeps are global in nature. Nested looping with different schedules is perfectly possible, as is calling of functions, however SVSTATE (and any associated SVSHAPEs if REMAP is being used) should obviously be stored on the stack in order to achieve this benefit not normally found in Vector ISAs.

Use of svstep with Vertical-First sub-vectors

Incrementing and iteration through subvector state ssubstep and dsubstep is possible with sv.svstep/vecN where as expected N may be 2/3/4. However it is necessary to use the exact same Sub-Vector qualifier on any Prefixed instructions, within any given Vertical-First loop: vec2/3/4 is not automatically applied to all instructions, it must be explicitly applied on a per-instruction basis. Also valid is not specifying a Sub-vector qualifier at all, but it is critically important to note that operations will be repeated. For example if sv.svstep/vec2 is not used on sv.addi then each Vector element operation is repeated twice. The reason is that whilst svstep will be iterating through both the SUBVL and VL loops, the addi instruction only uses srcstep and dststep (not ssubstep or dsubstep) Illustrated below:

    def offset():
      for step in range(VL):
        for substep in range(SUBVL=2):
          yield step, substep
    for i, j in offset():
        vec2_offs = i * SUBVL + j  # calculate vec2 offset
        addi RT+i, RA+i, 1      # but sv.addi is not vec2!
        muli/vec2 RT+vec2_offs, RA+vec2_offs, 2 # this is

Actual assembler would be:

    loop:
        setvl VF=1, CTRmode
        sv.addi *RT, *RA, 1      # no vec2
        sv.muli/vec2 *RT, *RA, 2 # vec2
        sv.svstep/vec2           # must match the muli
        sv.bc CTRmode, loop      # subtracts VL from CTR

This illustrates the correct but seemingly-anomalous behaviour: sv.svstep/vec2 is being requested to update SVSTATE to follow a vec2 loop construct. The anomalous sv.addi is not prohibited as it may in fact be desirable to execute operations twice, or to re-load data that was overwritten, and many other possibilities.

\newpage{}

Appendix

src_iterate

Note that srcstep and ssubstep are not the absolute final Element (and Sub-Element) offsets. srcstep still has to go through individual REMAP translation before becoming a per-operand (RA, RB, RC, RT, RS) Element-level Source offset.

Note also critically that PACK mode simply inverts the outer/order loops making SUBVL the outer loop and VL the inner.

    # source-stepping iterator
    subvl = SVSTATE.subvl
    vl = SVSTATE.vl
    pack = SVSTATE.pack
    unpack = SVSTATE.unpack
    ssubstep = SVSTATE.ssubstep
    end_ssub = ssubstep == subvl
    end_src = SVSTATE.srcstep == vl-1
    # first source step.
    srcstep = SVSTATE.srcstep
    # used below:
    #       sz      - from RM.MODE, source-zeroing
    #       srcmask - from RM.MODE, the source predicate
    if pack:
        # pack advances subvl in *outer* loop
        while True:
            assert srcstep <= vl-1
            end_src = srcstep == vl-1
            if end_src:
                if end_ssub:
                    loopend = True
                else:
                    SVSTATE.ssubstep += 1
                srcstep = 0  # reset
                break
            else:
                srcstep += 1  # advance srcstep
                if not sz:
                    break
                if ((1 << srcstep) & srcmask) != 0:
                    break
    else:
        # advance subvl in *inner* loop
        if end_ssub:
            while True:
                assert srcstep <= vl-1
                end_src = srcstep == vl-1
                if end_src:  # end-point
                    loopend = True
                    srcstep = 0
                    break
                else:
                    srcstep += 1
                if not sz:
                    break
                if ((1 << srcstep) & srcmask) != 0:
                    break
                else:
                    log("      sskip", bin(srcmask), bin(1 << srcstep))
            SVSTATE.ssubstep = 0b00  # reset
        else:
            # advance ssubstep
            SVSTATE.ssubstep += 1

    SVSTATE.srcstep = srcstep

\newpage{}

dest_iterate

Note that dststep and dsubstep are not the absolute final Element (and Sub-Element) offsets. dststep still has to go through individual REMAP translation before becoming a per-operand (RT, RS/EA) destination Element-level offset, and dsubstep may also go through (f)mv.swizzle reordering.

Note also critically that UNPACK mode simply inverts the outer/order loops making SUBVL the outer loop and VL the inner.

    # dest step iterator
    vl = SVSTATE.vl
    subvl = SVSTATE.subvl
    unpack = SVSTATE.unpack
    dsubstep = SVSTATE.dsubstep
    end_dsub = dsubstep == subvl
    dststep = SVSTATE.dststep
    end_dst = dststep == vl-1
    # used below:
    #       dz      - from RM.MODE, destination-zeroing
    #       dstmask - from RM.MODE, the destination predicate
    if unpack:
        # unpack advances subvl in *outer* loop
        while True:
            assert dststep <= vl-1
            end_dst = dststep == vl-1
            if end_dst:
                if end_dsub:
                    loopend = True
                else:
                    SVSTATE.dsubstep += 1
                dststep = 0  # reset
                break
            else:
                dststep += 1  # advance dststep
                if not dz:
                    break
                if ((1 << dststep) & dstmask) != 0:
                    break
    else:
        # advance subvl in *inner* loop
        if end_dsub:
            while True:
                assert dststep <= vl-1
                end_dst = dststep == vl-1
                if end_dst:  # end-point
                    loopend = True
                    dststep = 0
                    break
                else:
                    dststep += 1
                if not dz:
                    break
                if ((1 << dststep) & dstmask) != 0:
                    break
            SVSTATE.dsubstep = 0b00  # reset
        else:
            # advance ssubstep
            SVSTATE.dsubstep += 1

    SVSTATE.dststep = dststep

\newpage{}

SVSTATE_NEXT

    if SVi = 1 then return REMAP SVSHAPE0 current offset
    if SVi = 2 then return REMAP SVSHAPE1 current offset
    if SVi = 3 then return REMAP SVSHAPE2 current offset
    if SVi = 4 then return REMAP SVSHAPE3 current offset
    if SVi = 5 then return SVSTATE.srcstep  # VL source step
    if SVi = 6 then return SVSTATE.dststep  # VL dest step
    if SVi = 7 then return SVSTATE.ssubstep # SUBVL source step
    if SVi = 8 then return SVSTATE.dsubstep # SUBVL dest step

    # SVi=0, explicit iteration requezted
    src_iterate();
    dst_iterate();
    return 0

at_loopend

Both Vertical-First and Horizontal-First may use this algorithm to determine if the "end-of-looping" (end of Sub-Program-Counter) has been reached. Horizontal-First Mode will immediately move to the next instruction, where svstep. will set CR0.EQ to 1.

    # tells if this is the last possible element.
    subvl = SVSTATE.subvl
    vl = SVSTATE.vl
    end_ssub = SVSTATE.ssubstep == subvl
    end_dsub = SVSTATE.dsubstep == subvl
    if SVSTATE.srcstep == vl-1 and end_ssub:
        return True
    if SVSTATE.dststep == vl-1 and end_dsub:
        return True
    return False

\newpage{}

setvl: Set Vector Length

See links:

• http://lists.libre-soc.org/pipermail/libre-soc-dev/2020-November/001366.html
• https://bugs.libre-soc.org/show_bug.cgi?id=535
• https://bugs.libre-soc.org/show_bug.cgi?id=587
• https://bugs.libre-soc.org/show_bug.cgi?id=914 TODO: setvl should not set SO
• https://bugs.libre-soc.org/show_bug.cgi?id=568 TODO
• https://bugs.libre-soc.org/show_bug.cgi?id=927 bug - RT>=32
• https://bugs.libre-soc.org/show_bug.cgi?id=862 VF Predication
• https://bugs.libre-soc.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1222 Rc=1 enhancement needed
• https://github.com/riscv/riscv-v-spec/blob/master/v-spec.adoc#vsetvlivsetvl-instructions
• svstep
• pseudocode simplev

Add the following section to the Simple-V Chapter

setvl

SVL-Form

• setvl RT,RA,SVi,vf,vs,ms (Rc=0)
• setvl. RT,RA,SVi,vf,vs,ms (Rc=1)

Pseudo-code:

    overflow <- 0b0    # sets CR.SO if set and if Rc=1
    VLimm <- SVi + 1
    # set or get MVL
    if ms = 1 then MVL <- VLimm[0:6]
    else           MVL <- SVSTATE[0:6]
    # set or get VL
    if vs = 0                then VL <- SVSTATE[7:13]
    else if _RA != 0         then
        if (RA) >u 0b1111111 then
            VL <- 0b1111111
            overflow <- 0b1
        else                      VL <- (RA)[57:63]
    else if _RT = 0          then VL <- VLimm[0:6]
    else if CTR >u 0b1111111 then
        VL <- 0b1111111
        overflow <- 0b1
    else                          VL <- CTR[57:63]
    # limit VL to within MVL
    if VL >u MVL then
        overflow <- 0b1
        VL <- MVL
    SVSTATE[0:6] <- MVL
    SVSTATE[7:13] <- VL
    if _RT != 0 then
       GPR(_RT) <- [0]*57 || VL
    # MAXVL is a static "state-reset" opportunity so VF is only set then.
    if ms = 1 then
         SVSTATE[63] <- vf   # set Vertical-First mode
         SVSTATE[62] <- 0b0  # clear persist bit

Special Registers Altered:

    CR0                     (if Rc=1)
    SVSTATE

• SVi - bits 16-22 - an immediate operand for setting MVL and/or VL
• ms - bit 23 - allows for setting of MVL
• vs - bit 24 - allows for setting of VL
• vf - bit 25 - sets "Vertical First Mode".

Note that in immediate setting mode VL and MVL start from one but that this is compensated for in the assembly notation. i.e. that an immediate value of 1 in assembler notation actually places the value 0b0000000 in the SVi field bits: on execution the setvl instruction adds one to the decoded SVi field bits, resulting in VL/MVL being set to 1. In future this will allow VL to be set to values ranging from 1 to 128 with only 7 bits instead of 8. Setting VL/MVL to 0 would result in all Vector operations becoming nop. If this is truly desired (nop behaviour) then setting VL and MVL to zero is to be done via the SVSTATE SPR.

Note that setmvli is a pseudo-op, based on RA/RT=0, and setvli likewise

    setvli   VL=8   : setvl  r0, r0, VL=8, vf=0, vs=1, ms=0
    setvli.  VL=8   : setvl. r0, r0, VL=8, vf=0, vs=1, ms=0
    setmvli  MVL=8  : setvl  r0, r0, MVL=8, vf=0, vs=0, ms=1
    setmvli. MVL=8  : setvl. r0, r0, MVL=8, vf=0, vs=0, ms=1

Additional pseudo-op for obtaining VL without modifying it (or any state):

    getvl  r5      : setvl  r5, r0, vf=0, vs=0, ms=0
    getvl. r5      : setvl. r5, r0, vf=0, vs=0, ms=0

Note that whilst it is possible to set both MVL and VL from the same immediate, it is not possible to set them to different immediates in the same instruction. Doing so would require two instructions.

Use of setvl results in changes to the SVSTATE SPR. see sprs

Selecting sources for VL

There is considerable opcode pressure, consequently to set MVL and VL from different sources is as follows:

The reasoning here is that the opportunity to set RT equal to the immediate SVi+1 is sacrificed in favour of setting from CTR.

Unusual Rc=1 behaviour

Normally, the return result from an instruction is in RT. With it being possible for RT=0 to mean that CTR mode is to be read, some different semantics are needed.

CR Field 0, when Rc=1, may be set even if RT=0. The reason is that overflow may occur: VL, if set either from an immediate or from CTR, may not exceed MAXVL, and if it is, CR0.SO must be set.

In reality it is VL being set. Therefore, rather than CR0 testing RT when Rc=1, CR0.EQ is set if VL=0, CR0.GE is set if VL is non-zero.

SUBVL

Sub-vector elements are not be considered "Vertical". The vec2/3/4 is to be considered as if the "single element". Caveats exist for mv.swizzle and mv.vec when Pack/Unpack is enabled, due to the order in which VL and SUBVL loops are applied being swapped (outer-inner becomes inner-outer)

Examples

Core concept loop

This example illustrates the Cray-style Loop concept. However where most Cray Vectors have a Max Vector Length hard-coded into the architecture, Simple-V allows MVL to be set, but only as a static immediate, so that compilers may embed the register resource allocation statically at compile-time.

loop:
    setvl a3, a0, MVL=8    #  update a3 with vl
                           # (# of elements this iteration)
                           # set MVL to 8 and
                           # set a3=VL=MIN(a0,MVL)
    # do vector operations at up to 8 length (MVL=8)
    # ...
    sub. a0, a0, a3   # Decrement count by vl, set CR0.eq
    bnez a0, loop    # Any more?

Loop using Rc=1

In this example, the setvl. instruction enabled Rc=1, which sets CR0.eq when VL becomes zero. Testing of r4 (cmpi) is thus redundant saving one instruction.

    my_fn:
      li r3, 1000
      b test
    loop:
      sub r3, r3, r4
      ...
    test:
      setvli. r4, r3, MVL=64
      bne cr0, loop
    end:
      blr

Load/Store-Multi (selective)

Up to 64 FPRs will be loaded, here. r3 is set one per bit for each FP register required to be loaded. The block of memory from which the registers are loaded is contiguous (no gaps): any FP register which has a corresponding zero bit in r3 is unaltered. In essence this is a selective LD-multi with "Scatter" (VCOMPRESS) capability.

    setvli r0, MVL=64, VL=64
    sv.fld/dm=r3 *r0, 0(r30) # selective load 64 FP registers

Up to 64 FPRs will be saved, here. Again, r3 specifies which registers are set in a VEXPAND fashion.

    setvli r0, MVL=64, VL=64
    sv.stfd/sm=r3 *fp0, 0(r30) # selective store 64 FP registers

\newpage{}

SPRs

The full list of SPRs for Simple-V is:

Future versions of Simple-V will have at least 7 more SVSTATE SPRs, in a small "stack", as part of a full Zero-Overhead Loop Control subsystem.

SVSTATE SPR

The format of the SVSTATE SPR is as follows:

Notes:

• The entries are truncated to be within range. Attempts to set VL to greater than MAXVL will truncate VL.
• Setting srcstep, dststep to 64 or greater, or VL or MVL to greater than 64 is reserved and will cause an illegal instruction trap.

SVSTATE Fields

SVSTATE is a standard SPR that (if REMAP is not activated) contains sufficient self-contaned information for a full context save/restore. SVSTATE contains (and permits setting of):

• MVL (the Maximum Vector Length) - declares (statically) how much of a regfile is to be reserved for Vector elements
• VL - Vector Length
• dststep - the destination element offset of the current parallel instruction being executed
• srcstep - for twin-predication, the source element offset as well.
• ssubstep - the source subvector element offset of the current parallel instruction being executed
• dsubstep - the destination subvector element offset of the current parallel instruction being executed
• vfirst - Vertical First mode. srcstep, dststep and substep do not advance unless explicitly requested to do so with svstep
• RMpst - REMAP persistence. REMAP will apply only to the following instruction unless this bit is set, in which case REMAP "persists". Reset (cleared) on use of the setvl instruction if used to alter VL or MVL.
• Pack - if set then srcstep/ssubstep VL/SUBVL loop-ordering is inverted.
• UnPack - if set then dststep/dsubstep VL/SUBVL loop-ordering is inverted.
• hphint - Horizontal Parallelism Hint. Indicates that no Hazards exist between groups of elements in sequential multiples of this number (before REMAP). By definition: elements for which FLOOR(step/hphint) is equal before REMAP are in the same parallelism "group", for both srcstep and dststep. In Vertical First Mode hardware MUST respect Strict Program Order but is permitted to merge multiple scalar loops into parallel batches, if Reservation Station resources are sufficient. Set to zero to indicate "no hint".
• SVme - REMAP enable bits, indicating which register is to be REMAPed: RA, RB, RC, RT and EA are the canonical (typical) register names associated with each bit, with RA being the LSB and EA being the MSB. See table below for ordering. When SVme is zero (0b00000) REMAP is fully disabled and inactive regardless of the contents of SVSTATE, mi0-mi2/mo0-mo1, or the four SVSHAPEn SPRs
• mi0-mi2/mo0-mo1 - these indicate the SVSHAPE (0-3) that the corresponding register (RA etc) should use, as long as the register's corresponding SVme bit is set

Programmer's Note: the fact that REMAP is entirely dormant when SVme is zero allows establishment of REMAP context well in advance, followed by utilising svremap at a precise (or the very last) moment. Some implementations may exploit this to cache (or take some time to prepare caches) in the background whilst other (unrelated) instructions are being executed. This is particularly important to bear in mind when using svindex which will require hardware to perform (and cache) additional GPR reads.

Programmer's Note: when REMAP is activated it becomes necessary on any context-switch (Interrupt or Function call) to detect (or know in advance) that REMAP is enabled and to additionally explicitly save/restore the four SVSHAPE SPRs, SVHAPE0-3. Given that this is expected to be a rare occurrence it was deemed unreasonable to burden every context-switch or function call with mandatory save/restore of SVSHAPEs, and consequently it is a callee (and Trap Handler) responsibility. Callees (and Trap Handlers) MUST avoid using all and any SVP64 instructions during the period where state could be adversely affected. SVP64 purely relies on Scalar instructions, so Scalar instructions (except the SVP64 Management ones and mtspr and mfspr) are 100% guaranteed to have zero impact on SVP64 state.

SVme REMAP area

Each bit of SVSTATE.SVme indicates whether the SVSHAPE (0-3) is active and to which register the REMAP applies. The application goes by assembler operand names on a per-mnemonic basis. Some instructions may have RT as a source and as a destination: REMAP applies separately to each use in this case. Also for Load/Store with Update the Effective Address (stored in EA) also may be separately REMAPed from RA as a source operand.

Max Vector Length (maxvl)

Vector Length (vl)

    VL = (RT|0) = MIN(vlen, MVL)

    |0     |6    |11    |16   |23 |24 |25 |26    |31 |
    | PO   |  RT |   RA | SVi |ms |vs |vf |   XO |Rc |
    | PO   |  RT | /    | SVi |/  |/  |vf |   XO |Rc |

    ms (23)
        Field used in Simple-V to specify whether MVL (maxvl in the SVSTATE SPR)
        is to be set
        Formats: SVL
    vf (25)
        Field used in Simple-V to specify whether "Vertical" Mode is set
        (vfirst in the SVSTATE SPR)
        Formats: SVL
    vs (24)
        Field used in Simple-V to specify whether VL (vl in the SVSTATE SPR) is to be set
        Formats: SVL
    SVi (16:22)
         Simple-V immediate field used by setvl for setting VL or MVL
         (vl, maxvl in the SVSTATE SPR)
         and used as a "Mode of Operation" selector in svstep
         Formats: SVL

Appendix E Power ISA sorted by opcode
Appendix F Power ISA sorted by version
Appendix G Power ISA sorted by Compliancy Subset
Appendix H Power ISA sorted by mnemonic