SV Load and Store

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Vectorisation of Load and Store requires creation, from scalar operations, a number of different modes:

  • fixed stride (contiguous sequence with no gaps) aka "unit" stride
  • element strided (sequential but regularly offset, with gaps)
  • vector indexed (vector of base addresses and vector of offsets)
  • fail-first on the same (where it makes sense to do so)
  • Structure Packing (covered in SV by remap).

OpenPOWER Load/Store operations may be seen from fixedload and fixedstore pseudocode to be of the form:

lbux RT, RA, RB
EA <- (RA) + (RB)
RT <- MEM(EA)

and for immediate variants:

lb RT,D(RA)
EA <- RA + EXTS(D)
RT <- MEM(EA)

Thus in the first example, the source registers may each be independently marked as scalar or vector, and likewise the destination; in the second example only the one source and one dest may be marked as scalar or vector.

Thus we can see that Vector Indexed may be covered, and, as demonstrated with the pseudocode below, the immediate can be used to give unit stride or element stride. With there being no way to tell which from the OpenPOWER v3.0B Scalar opcode alone, the choice is provided instead by the SV Context.

# LD not VLD!  format - ldop RT, immed(RA)
# op_width: lb=1, lh=2, lw=4, ld=8
op_load(RT, RA, op_width, immed, svctx, RAupdate):
  ps = get_pred_val(FALSE, RA); # predication on src
  pd = get_pred_val(FALSE, RT); # ... AND on dest
  for (i=0, j=0, u=0; i < VL && j < VL;):
    # skip nonpredicates elements
    if (RA.isvec) while (!(ps & 1<<i)) i++;
    if (RAupdate.isvec) while (!(ps & 1<<u)) u++;
    if (RT.isvec) while (!(pd & 1<<j)) j++;
    if svctx.ldstmode == elementstride:
      # element stride mode
      srcbase = ireg[RA]
      offs = i * immed
    elif svctx.ldstmode == unitstride:
      # unit stride mode
      srcbase = ireg[RA]
      offs = i * op_width
    elif RA.isvec:
      # quirky Vector indexed mode but with an immediate
      srcbase = ireg[RA+i]
      offs = immed;
    else
      # standard scalar mode (but predicated)
      # no stride multiplier means VSPLAT mode
      srcbase = ireg[RA]
      offs = immed

    # compute EA
    EA = srcbase + offs
    # update RA?
    if RAupdate: ireg[RAupdate+u] = EA;
    # load from memory
    ireg[RT+j] <= MEM[EA];
    if (!RT.isvec)
        break # destination scalar, end now
    if (RA.isvec) i++;
    if (RAupdate.isvec) u++;
    if (RT.isvec) j++;

Indexed LD is:

# format: ldop RT, RA, RB
function op_ldx(RT, RA, RB, RAupdate=False) # LD not VLD!
  ps = get_pred_val(FALSE, RA); # predication on src
  pd = get_pred_val(FALSE, RT); # ... AND on dest
  for (i=0, j=0, k=0, u=0; i < VL && j < VL && k < VL):
    # skip nonpredicated RA, RB and RT
    if (RA.isvec) while (!(ps & 1<<i)) i++;
    if (RAupdate.isvec) while (!(ps & 1<<u)) u++;
    if (RB.isvec) while (!(ps & 1<<k)) k++;
    if (RT.isvec) while (!(pd & 1<<j)) j++;
    EA = ireg[RA+i] + ireg[RB+k] # indexed address
    if RAupdate: ireg[RAupdate+u] = EA
    ireg[RT+j] <= MEM[EA];
    if (!RT.isvec)
        break # destination scalar, end immediately
    if (!RA.isvec && !RB.isvec)
        break # scalar-scalar
    if (RA.isvec) i++;
    if (RAupdate.isvec) u++;
    if (RB.isvec) k++;
    if (RT.isvec) j++;

Note in both cases that svp64 allows RA-as-a-dest in "update" mode (ldux) to be effectively a completely different register from RA-as-a-source. This because there is room in svp64 to extend RA-as-src as well as RA-as-dest, both independently as scalar or vector and independently extending their range.

Determining the LD/ST Modes

A minor complication (caused by the retro-fitting of modern Vector features to a Scalar ISA) is that certain features do not exactly make sense or are considered a security risk. Fail-first on Vector Indexed allows attackers to probe large numbers of pages from userspace, where strided fail-first (by creating contiguous sequential LDs) does not.

In addition, reduce mode makes no sense, and for LD/ST with immediates Vector source RA makes no sense either (or, is a quirk). Realistically we need an alternative table meaning for svp64 mode. The following modes make sense:

  • saturation
  • predicate-result (mostly for cache-inhibited LD/ST)
  • normal
  • fail-first, where a vector source on RA or RB is banned

The table for svp64 for immed(RA) is:

0-1 2 3 4 description
00 els dz sz normal mode
01 inv CR-bit Rc=1: ffirst CR sel
01 inv els RC1 Rc=0: ffirst z/nonz
10 N dz els sat mode: N=0/1 u/s
11 inv CR-bit Rc=1: pred-result CR sel
11 inv els RC1 Rc=0: pred-result z/nonz

The els bit is only relevant when RA.isvec is clear: this indicates whether stride is unit or element:

if RA.isvec:
    svctx.ldstmode = indexed
elif els == 0:
    svctx.ldstmode = unitstride
elif immediate != 0:
    svctx.ldstmode = elementstride

An immediate of zero is a safety-valve to allow LD-VSPLAT: in effect the multiplication of the immediate-offset by zero results in reading from the exact same memory location.

For LD-VSPLAT, on non-cache-inhibited Loads, the read can occur just the once and be copied, rather than hitting the Data Cache multiple times with the same memory read at the same location.

For ST from a vector source onto a scalar destination: with the Vector loop effectively creating multiple memory writes to the same location, we can deduce that the last of these will be the "successful" one. Thus, implementations are free and clear to optimise out the overwriting STs, leaving just the last one as the "winner". Bear in mind that predicate masks will skip some elements (in source non-zeroing mode).

Note that there are no immediate versions of cache-inhibited LD/ST.

The modes for RA+RB indexed version are slightly different:

0-1 2 3 4 description
00 0 dz sz normal mode
00 1 rsvd reserved
01 inv CR-bit Rc=1: ffirst CR sel
01 inv dz RC1 Rc=0: ffirst z/nonz
10 N dz sz sat mode: N=0/1 u/s
11 inv CR-bit Rc=1: pred-result CR sel
11 inv dz RC1 Rc=0: pred-result z/nonz

A summary of the effect of Vectorisation of src or dest:

 imm(RA)  RT.v   RA.v   no stride allowed
 imm(RA)  RT.s   RA.v   no stride allowed
 imm(RA)  RT.v   RA.s   stride-select allowed
 imm(RA)  RT.s   RA.s   not vectorised
 RA,RB    RT.v  RA/RB.v ffirst banned
 RA,RB    RT.s  RA/RB.v ffirst banned
 RA,RB    RT.v  RA/RB.s VSPLAT possible
 RA,RB    RT.s  RA/RB.s not vectorised

Note that cache-inhibited LD/ST (ldcix) when VSPLAT is activated will perform multiple LD/ST operations, sequentially. ldcix even with scalar src will read the same memory location multiple times, storing the result in successive Vector destination registers. This because the cache-inhibit instructions are used to read and write memory-mapped peripherals. If a genuine cache-inhibited LD-VSPLAT is required then a scalar cache-inhibited LD should be performed, followed by a VSPLAT-augmented mv.

LOAD/STORE Elwidths

Loads and Stores are almost unique in that the OpenPOWER Scalar ISA provides a width for the operation (lb, lh, lw, ld). Only extsb and others like it provide an explicit operation width. There are therefore three widths involved:

  • operation width (lb=8, lh=16, lw=32, ld=64)
  • src elelent width override
  • destination element width override

Some care is therefore needed to express and make clear the transformations, which are expressly in this order:

  • Load at the operation width (lb/lh/lw/ld) as usual
  • byte-reversal as usual
  • Non-saturated mode:
    • zero-extension or truncation from operation width to source elwidth
    • zero/truncation to dest elwidth
  • Saturated mode:
    • Sign-extension or truncation from operation width to source width
    • signed/unsigned saturation down to dest elwidth

In order to respect OpenPOWER v3.0B Scalar behaviour the memory side is treated effectively as completely separate and distinct from SV augmentation. This is primarily down to quirks surrounding LE/BE and byte-reversal in OpenPOWER.

Note the following regarding the pseudocode to follow:

  • scalar identity behaviour SV Context parameter conditions turn this into a straight absolute fully-compliant Scalar v3.0B LD operation
  • brev selects whether the operation is the byte-reversed variant (ldbrx rather than ld)
  • op_width specifies the operation width (lb, lh, lw, ld) as a "normal" part of Scalar v3.0B LD
  • imm_offs specifies the immediate offset ld r3, imm_offs(r5), again as a "normal" part of Scalar v3.0B LD
  • svctx specifies the SV Context and includes VL as well as source and destination elwidth overrides.

Below is the pseudocode for Unit-Strided LD (which includes Vector capability).

Note that twin predication, predication-zeroing, saturation and other modes have all been removed, for clarity and simplicity:

# LD not VLD! (ldbrx if brev=True)
# this covers unit stride mode and a type of vector offset
function op_ld(RT, RA, brev, op_width, imm_offs, svctx)
  for (int i = 0, int j = 0; i < svctx.VL && j < svctx.VL;):

    if not svctx.unit/el-strided:
        # strange vector mode, compute 64 bit address which is
        # not polymorphic! elwidth hardcoded to 64 here
        srcbase = get_polymorphed_reg(RA, 64, i)
    else:
        # unit / element stride mode, compute 64 bit address
        srcbase = get_polymorphed_reg(RA, 64, 0)
        # adjust for unit/el-stride
        srcbase += ....

    # takes care of (merges) processor LE/BE and ld/ldbrx
    bytereverse = brev XNOR MSR.LE

    # read the underlying memory
    memread <= mem[srcbase + imm_offs];

    # optionally performs byteswap at op width
    if (bytereverse):
        memread = byteswap(memread, op_width)


    # check saturation.
    if svpctx.saturation_mode:
        ... saturation adjustment...
    else:
        # truncate/extend to over-ridden source width.
        memread = adjust_wid(memread, op_width, svctx.src_elwidth)

    # takes care of inserting memory-read (now correctly byteswapped)
    # into regfile underlying LE-defined order, into the right place
    # within the NEON-like register, respecting destination element
    # bitwidth, and the element index (j)
    set_polymorphed_reg(RT, svctx.dest_bitwidth, j, memread)

    # increments both src and dest element indices (no predication here)
    i++;
    j++;

Remapped LD/ST

In the propagation page the concept of "Remapping" is described. Whilst it is expensive to set up (2 64-bit opcodes minimum) it provides a way to arbitrarily perform 1D, 2D and 3D "remapping" of up to 64 elements worth of LDs or STs. The usual interest in such re-mapping is for example in separating out 24-bit RGB channel data into separate contiguous registers. NEON covers this as shown in the diagram below:

Remap easily covers this capability, and with dest elwidth overrides and saturation may do so with built-in conversion that would normally require additional width-extension, sign-extension and min/max Vectorised instructions as post-processing stages.

Thus we do not need to provide specialist LD/ST "Structure Packed" opcodes because the generic abstracted concept of "Remapping", when applied to LD/ST, will give that same capability, with far more flexibility.

notes from lxo

this section covers assembly notation for the immediate and indexed LD/ST. the summary is that in immediate mode for LD it is not clear that if the destination register is Vectorised RT.v but the source imm(RA) is scalar the memory being read is still a vector load, known as "unit or element strides".

This anomaly is made clear with the following notation:

sv.ld RT.v, imm(RA).v

The following notation, although technically correct due to being implicitly identical to the above, is prohibited and is a syntax error:

sv.ld RT.v, imm(RA)

Notes taken from IRC conversation

<lxo> sv.ld r#.v, ofst(r#).v -> the whole vector is at ofst+r#
<lxo> sv.ld r#.v, ofst(r#.v) -> r# is a vector of addresses
<lxo> similarly sv.ldx r#.v, r#, r#.v -> whole vector at r#+r#
<lxo> whereas sv.ldx r#.v, r#.v, r# -> vector of addresses
<lxo> point being, you take an operand with the "m" constraint (or other memory-operand constraints), append .v to it and you're done addressing the in-memory vector
<lxo> as in asm ("sv.ld1 %0.v, %1.v" : "=r"(vec_in_reg) : "m"(vec_in_mem));
<lxo> (and ld%U1 got mangled into underline; %U expands to x if the address is a sum of registers

permutations of vector selection, to identify above asm-syntax:

 imm(RA)  RT.v   RA.v   nonstrided
     sv.ld r#.v, ofst(r#2.v) -> r#2 is a vector of addresses
       mem@     0+r#2   offs+(r#2+1)  offs+(r#2+2)
       destreg  r#      r#+1          r#+2
 imm(RA)  RT.s   RA.v   nonstrided
     sv.ld r#, ofst(r#2.v) -> r#2 is a vector of addresses
       (dest r# is scalar) -> VSELECT mode
 imm(RA)  RT.v   RA.s   fixed stride: unit or element
     sv.ld r#.v, ofst(r#2).v -> whole vector is at ofst+r#2
       mem@r#2  +0   +1   +2
       destreg  r#   r#+1 r#+2
     sv.ld/els r#.v, ofst(r#2).v -> vector at ofst*elidx+r#2
       mem@r#2  +0 ...   +offs ...  +offs*2
       destreg  r#       r#+1       r#+2
 imm(RA)  RT.s   RA.s   not vectorised
     sv.ld r#, ofst(r#2)

indexed mode:

 RA,RB    RT.v  RA.v  RB.v
    sv.ldx r#.v, r#2, r#3.v -> whole vector at r#2+r#3
 RA,RB    RT.v  RA.s  RB.v
    sv.ldx r#.v, r#2.v, r#3.v -> whole vector at r#2+r#3
 RA,RB    RT.v  RA.v  RB.s
    sv.ldx r#.v, r#2.v, r#3 -> vector of addresses
 RA,RB    RT.v  RA.s  RB.s
    sv.ldx r#.v, r#2, r#3 -> VSPLAT mode
 RA,RB    RT.s  RA.v  RB.v
 RA,RB    RT.s  RA.s  RB.v
 RA,RB    RT.s  RA.v  RB.s
 RA,RB    RT.s  RA.s  RB.s not vectorised