Appendix A: Formal Memory Model Specifications, Version 0.1
To facilitate formal analysis of RVWMO, this chapter presents a set of
formalizations using different tools and modeling approaches. Any
discrepancies are unintended; the expectation is that the models
describe exactly the same sets of legal behaviors.
This appendix should be treated as commentary; all normative material is
provided in Chapter 17 and in the rest of
the main body of the ISA specification. All currently known
discrepancies are listed in
Section A.7. Any other
discrepancies are unintentional.
The online material also contains some litmus tests and some examples of
how Alloy can be used to model check some of the mappings in [memory_porting].
The RVWMO memory model formalized in Alloy (1/5: PPO)
// =RVWMO PPO=
// Preserved Program Order
fun ppo : Event->Event {
// same-address ordering
po_loc :> Store
+ rdw
+ (AMO + StoreConditional) <: rfi
// explicit synchronization
+ ppo_fence
+ Acquire <: ^po :> MemoryEvent
+ MemoryEvent <: ^po :> Release
+ RCsc <: ^po :> RCsc
+ pair
// syntactic dependencies
+ addrdep
+ datadep
+ ctrldep :> Store
// pipeline dependencies
+ (addrdep+datadep).rfi
+ addrdep.^po :> Store
}
// the global memory order respects preserved program order
fact { ppo in ^gmo }
The RVWMO memory model formalized in Alloy (2/5: Axioms)
// =RVWMO axioms=
// Load Value Axiom
fun candidates[r: MemoryEvent] : set MemoryEvent {
(r.~^gmo & Store & same_addr[r]) // writes preceding r in gmo
+ (r.^~po & Store & same_addr[r]) // writes preceding r in po
}
fun latest_among[s: set Event] : Event { s - s.~^gmo }
pred LoadValue {
all w: Store | all r: Load |
w->r in rf <=> w = latest_among[candidates[r]]
}
// Atomicity Axiom
pred Atomicity {
all r: Store.~pair | // starting from the lr,
no x: Store & same_addr[r] | // there is no store x to the same addr
x not in same_hart[r] // such that x is from a different hart,
and x in r.~rf.^gmo // x follows (the store r reads from) in gmo,
and r.pair in x.^gmo // and r follows x in gmo
}
// Progress Axiom implicit: Alloy only considers finite executions
pred RISCV_mm { LoadValue and Atomicity /* and Progress */ }
The RVWMO memory model formalized in Alloy (3/5: model of memory)
//Basic model of memory
sig Hart { // hardware thread
start : one Event
}
sig Address {}
abstract sig Event {
po: lone Event // program order
}
abstract sig MemoryEvent extends Event {
address: one Address,
acquireRCpc: lone MemoryEvent,
acquireRCsc: lone MemoryEvent,
releaseRCpc: lone MemoryEvent,
releaseRCsc: lone MemoryEvent,
addrdep: set MemoryEvent,
ctrldep: set Event,
datadep: set MemoryEvent,
gmo: set MemoryEvent, // global memory order
rf: set MemoryEvent
}
sig LoadNormal extends MemoryEvent {} // l{b|h|w|d}
sig LoadReserve extends MemoryEvent { // lr
pair: lone StoreConditional
}
sig StoreNormal extends MemoryEvent {} // s{b|h|w|d}
// all StoreConditionals in the model are assumed to be successful
sig StoreConditional extends MemoryEvent {} // sc
sig AMO extends MemoryEvent {} // amo
sig NOP extends Event {}
fun Load : Event { LoadNormal + LoadReserve + AMO }
fun Store : Event { StoreNormal + StoreConditional + AMO }
sig Fence extends Event {
pr: lone Fence, // opcode bit
pw: lone Fence, // opcode bit
sr: lone Fence, // opcode bit
sw: lone Fence // opcode bit
}
sig FenceTSO extends Fence {}
/* Alloy encoding detail: opcode bits are either set (encoded, e.g.,
* as f.pr in iden) or unset (f.pr not in iden). The bits cannot be used for
* anything else */
fact { pr + pw + sr + sw in iden }
// likewise for ordering annotations
fact { acquireRCpc + acquireRCsc + releaseRCpc + releaseRCsc in iden }
// don't try to encode FenceTSO via pr/pw/sr/sw; just use it as-is
fact { no FenceTSO.(pr + pw + sr + sw) }
The RVWMO memory model formalized in Alloy (4/5: Basic model rules)
// =Basic model rules=
// Ordering annotation groups
fun Acquire : MemoryEvent { MemoryEvent.acquireRCpc + MemoryEvent.acquireRCsc }
fun Release : MemoryEvent { MemoryEvent.releaseRCpc + MemoryEvent.releaseRCsc }
fun RCpc : MemoryEvent { MemoryEvent.acquireRCpc + MemoryEvent.releaseRCpc }
fun RCsc : MemoryEvent { MemoryEvent.acquireRCsc + MemoryEvent.releaseRCsc }
// There is no such thing as store-acquire or load-release, unless it's both
fact { Load & Release in Acquire }
fact { Store & Acquire in Release }
// FENCE PPO
fun FencePRSR : Fence { Fence.(pr & sr) }
fun FencePRSW : Fence { Fence.(pr & sw) }
fun FencePWSR : Fence { Fence.(pw & sr) }
fun FencePWSW : Fence { Fence.(pw & sw) }
fun ppo_fence : MemoryEvent->MemoryEvent {
(Load <: ^po :> FencePRSR).(^po :> Load)
+ (Load <: ^po :> FencePRSW).(^po :> Store)
+ (Store <: ^po :> FencePWSR).(^po :> Load)
+ (Store <: ^po :> FencePWSW).(^po :> Store)
+ (Load <: ^po :> FenceTSO) .(^po :> MemoryEvent)
+ (Store <: ^po :> FenceTSO) .(^po :> Store)
}
// auxiliary definitions
fun po_loc : Event->Event { ^po & address.~address }
fun same_hart[e: Event] : set Event { e + e.^~po + e.^po }
fun same_addr[e: Event] : set Event { e.address.~address }
// initial stores
fun NonInit : set Event { Hart.start.*po }
fun Init : set Event { Event - NonInit }
fact { Init in StoreNormal }
fact { Init->(MemoryEvent & NonInit) in ^gmo }
fact { all e: NonInit | one e.*~po.~start } // each event is in exactly one hart
fact { all a: Address | one Init & a.~address } // one init store per address
fact { no Init <: po and no po :> Init }
The RVWMO memory model formalized in Alloy (5/5: Auxiliaries)
// po
fact { acyclic[po] }
// gmo
fact { total[^gmo, MemoryEvent] } // gmo is a total order over all MemoryEvents
//rf
fact { rf.~rf in iden } // each read returns the value of only one write
fact { rf in Store <: address.~address :> Load }
fun rfi : MemoryEvent->MemoryEvent { rf & (*po + *~po) }
//dep
fact { no StoreNormal <: (addrdep + ctrldep + datadep) }
fact { addrdep + ctrldep + datadep + pair in ^po }
fact { datadep in datadep :> Store }
fact { ctrldep.*po in ctrldep }
fact { no pair & (^po :> (LoadReserve + StoreConditional)).^po }
fact { StoreConditional in LoadReserve.pair } // assume all SCs succeed
// rdw
fun rdw : Event->Event {
(Load <: po_loc :> Load) // start with all same_address load-load pairs,
- (~rf.rf) // subtract pairs that read from the same store,
- (po_loc.rfi) // and subtract out "fri-rfi" patterns
}
// filter out redundant instances and/or visualizations
fact { no gmo & gmo.gmo } // keep the visualization uncluttered
fact { all a: Address | some a.~address }
// =Optional: opcode encoding restrictions=
// the list of blessed fences
fact { Fence in
Fence.pr.sr
+ Fence.pw.sw
+ Fence.pr.pw.sw
+ Fence.pr.sr.sw
+ FenceTSO
+ Fence.pr.pw.sr.sw
}
pred restrict_to_current_encodings {
no (LoadNormal + StoreNormal) & (Acquire + Release)
}
// =Alloy shortcuts=
pred acyclic[rel: Event->Event] { no iden & ^rel }
pred total[rel: Event->Event, bag: Event] {
all disj e, e': bag | e->e' in rel + ~rel
acyclic[rel]
}
Formal Axiomatic Specification in Herd
The tool herd takes a memory model and a litmus test as
input and simulates the execution of the test on top of the memory
model. Memory models are written in the domain specific language Cat.
This section provides two Cat memory model of RVWMO. The first model,
riscv.cat, a herd version of the RVWMO memory model (2/3), follows the global memory order,
Chapter [memorymodel], definition of RVWMO, as much
as is possible for a Cat model. The second model,
riscv.cat, an alternative herd presentation of the RVWMO memory model (3/3), is an equivalent, more efficient,
partial order based RVWMO model.
riscv-defs.cat, a herd definition of preserved program order (1/3)
(*************)
(* Utilities *)
(*************)
(* All fence relations *)
let fence.r.r = [R];fencerel(Fence.r.r);[R]
let fence.r.w = [R];fencerel(Fence.r.w);[W]
let fence.r.rw = [R];fencerel(Fence.r.rw);[M]
let fence.w.r = [W];fencerel(Fence.w.r);[R]
let fence.w.w = [W];fencerel(Fence.w.w);[W]
let fence.w.rw = [W];fencerel(Fence.w.rw);[M]
let fence.rw.r = [M];fencerel(Fence.rw.r);[R]
let fence.rw.w = [M];fencerel(Fence.rw.w);[W]
let fence.rw.rw = [M];fencerel(Fence.rw.rw);[M]
let fence.tso =
let f = fencerel(Fence.tso) in
([W];f;[W]) | ([R];f;[M])
let fence =
fence.r.r | fence.r.w | fence.r.rw |
fence.w.r | fence.w.w | fence.w.rw |
fence.rw.r | fence.rw.w | fence.rw.rw |
fence.tso
(* Same address, no W to the same address in-between *)
let po-loc-no-w = po-loc \ (po-loc?;[W];po-loc)
(* Read same write *)
let rsw = rf^-1;rf
(* Acquire, or stronger *)
let AQ = Acq|AcqRel
(* Release or stronger *)
and RL = RelAcqRel
(* All RCsc *)
let RCsc = Acq|Rel|AcqRel
(* Amo events are both R and W, relation rmw relates paired lr/sc *)
let AMO = R & W
let StCond = range(rmw)
(*************)
(* ppo rules *)
(*************)
(* Overlapping-Address Orderings *)
let r1 = [M];po-loc;[W]
and r2 = ([R];po-loc-no-w;[R]) \ rsw
and r3 = [AMO|StCond];rfi;[R]
(* Explicit Synchronization *)
and r4 = fence
and r5 = [AQ];po;[M]
and r6 = [M];po;[RL]
and r7 = [RCsc];po;[RCsc]
and r8 = rmw
(* Syntactic Dependencies *)
and r9 = [M];addr;[M]
and r10 = [M];data;[W]
and r11 = [M];ctrl;[W]
(* Pipeline Dependencies *)
and r12 = [R];(addr|data);[W];rfi;[R]
and r13 = [R];addr;[M];po;[W]
let ppo = r1 | r2 | r3 | r4 | r5 | r6 | r7 | r8 | r9 | r10 | r11 | r12 | r13
riscv.cat, a herd version of the RVWMO memory model (2/3)
Total
(* Notice that herd has defined its own rf relation *)
(* Define ppo *)
include "riscv-defs.cat"
(********************************)
(* Generate global memory order *)
(********************************)
let gmo0 = (* precursor: ie build gmo as an total order that include gmo0 *)
loc & (W\FW) * FW | # Final write after any write to the same location
ppo | # ppo compatible
rfe # includes herd external rf (optimization)
(* Walk over all linear extensions of gmo0 *)
with gmo from linearizations(M\IW,gmo0)
(* Add initial writes upfront -- convenient for computing rfGMO *)
let gmo = gmo | loc & IW * (M\IW)
(**********)
(* Axioms *)
(**********)
(* Compute rf according to the load value axiom, aka rfGMO *)
let WR = loc & ([W];(gmo|po);[R])
let rfGMO = WR \ (loc&([W];gmo);WR)
(* Check equality of herd rf and of rfGMO *)
empty (rf\rfGMO)|(rfGMO\rf) as RfCons
(* Atomicity axiom *)
let infloc = (gmo & loc)^-1
let inflocext = infloc & ext
let winside = (infloc;rmw;inflocext) & (infloc;rf;rmw;inflocext) & [W]
empty winside as Atomic
riscv.cat, an alternative herd presentation of the RVWMO memory model (3/3)
Partial
(***************)
(* Definitions *)
(***************)
(* Define ppo *)
include "riscv-defs.cat"
(* Compute coherence relation *)
include "cos-opt.cat"
(**********)
(* Axioms *)
(**********)
(* Sc per location *)
acyclic co|rf|fr|po-loc as Coherence
(* Main model axiom *)
acyclic co|rfe|fr|ppo as Model
(* Atomicity axiom *)
empty rmw & (fre;coe) as Atomic
An Operational Memory Model
This is an alternative presentation of the RVWMO memory model in
operational style. It aims to admit exactly the same extensional
behavior as the axiomatic presentation: for any given program, admitting
an execution if and only if the axiomatic presentation allows it.
The axiomatic presentation is defined as a predicate on complete
candidate executions. In contrast, this operational presentation has an
abstract microarchitectural flavor: it is expressed as a state machine,
with states that are an abstract representation of hardware machine
states, and with explicit out-of-order and speculative execution (but
abstracting from more implementation-specific microarchitectural details
such as register renaming, store buffers, cache hierarchies, cache
protocols, etc.). As such, it can provide useful intuition. It can also
construct executions incrementally, making it possible to interactively
and randomly explore the behavior of larger examples, while the
axiomatic model requires complete candidate executions over which the
axioms can be checked.
The operational presentation covers mixed-size execution, with
potentially overlapping memory accesses of different power-of-two byte
sizes. Misaligned accesses are broken up into single-byte accesses.
rmem has a command-line interface and a web-interface. The
web-interface runs entirely on the client side, and is provided online
together with a library of litmus tests:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/. The command-line interface is
faster than the web-interface, specially in exhaustive mode.
Below is an informal introduction of the model states and transitions.
The description of the formal model starts in the next subsection.
Terminology: In contrast to the axiomatic presentation, here every
memory operation is either a load or a store. Hence, AMOs give rise to
two distinct memory operations, a load and a store. When used in
conjunction with instruction, the terms load and store refer
to instructions that give rise to such memory operations. As such, both
include AMO instructions. The term acquire refers to an instruction
(or its memory operation) with the acquire-RCpc or acquire-RCsc
annotation. The term release refers to an instruction (or its memory
operation) with the release-RCpc or release-RCsc annotation.
Model states
Model states: A model state consists of a shared memory and a tuple of hart states.
The shared memory state records all the memory store operations that
have propagated so far, in the order they propagated (this can be made
more efficient, but for simplicity of the presentation we keep it this
way).
Each hart state consists principally of a tree of instruction instances,
some of which have been finished, and some of which have not.
Non-finished instruction instances can be subject to restart, e.g. if
they depend on an out-of-order or speculative load that turns out to be
unsound.
Conditional branch and indirect jump instructions may have multiple
successors in the instruction tree. When such instruction is finished,
any un-taken alternative paths are discarded.
Each instruction instance in the instruction tree has a state that
includes an execution state of the intra-instruction semantics (the ISA
pseudocode for this instruction). The model uses a formalization of the
intra-instruction semantics in Sail. One can think of the execution
state of an instruction as a representation of the pseudocode control
state, pseudocode call stack, and local variable values. An instruction
instance state also includes information about the instance’s memory and
register footprints, its register reads and writes, its memory
operations, whether it is finished, etc.
Model transitions
The model defines, for any model state, the set of allowed transitions,
each of which is a single atomic step to a new abstract machine state.
Execution of a single instruction will typically involve many
transitions, and they may be interleaved in operational-model execution
with transitions arising from other instructions. Each transition arises
from a single instruction instance; it will change the state of that
instance, and it may depend on or change the rest of its hart state and
the shared memory state, but it does not depend on other hart states,
and it will not change them. The transitions are introduced below and
defined in Transitions, with a precondition and
a construction of the post-transition model state for each.
Transitions for all instructions:
Fetch instruction: This transition represents a fetch and decode of a new instruction instance, as a program order successor of a previously fetched
instruction instance (or the initial fetch address).
The model assumes the instruction memory is fixed; it does not describe
the behavior of self-modifying code. In particular, the Fetch instruction transition does
not generate memory load operations, and the shared memory is not
involved in the transition. Instead, the model depends on an external
oracle that provides an opcode when given a memory location.
Register read: This is a read of a register value from the most recent
program-order-predecessor instruction instance that writes to that
register.
Pseudocode internal step: This covers pseudocode internal computation: arithmetic, function
calls, etc.
Finish instruction: At this point the instruction pseudocode is done, the instruction cannot be restarted, memory accesses cannot be discarded, and all memory
effects have taken place. For conditional branch and indirect jump
instructions, any program order successors that were fetched from an
address that is not the one that was written to the pc register are
discarded, together with the sub-tree of instruction instances below
them.
Transitions specific to load instructions:
Initiate memory load operations: At this point the memory footprint of the load instruction is
provisionally known (it could change if earlier instructions are
restarted) and its individual memory load operations can start being
satisfied.
Complete load operations: At this point all the memory load operations of the instruction have
been entirely satisfied and the instruction pseudocode can continue
executing. A load instruction can be subject to being restarted until
the transition. But, under some conditions, the model might treat a load
instruction as non-restartable even before it is finished (e.g. see ).
Instantiate memory store operation values: At this point the memory store operations have their values and
program-order-successor memory load operations can be satisfied by
forwarding from them.
Commit store instruction: At this point the store operations are guaranteed to happen (the
instruction can no longer be restarted or discarded), and they can start
being propagated to memory.
Complete store operations: At this point all the memory store operations of the instruction
have been propagated to memory, and the instruction pseudocode can
continue executing.
Transitions specific to sc instructions:
Early sc fail: This causes the sc to fail, either a spontaneous fail or becauset is not paired with a program-order-previous lr.
Paired sc: This transition indicates the sc is paired with an lr and might
succeed.
Late sc fail: This causes the sc to fail, either a spontaneous fail or because
the stores from which the lr read from have been overwritten.
Transitions specific to AMO instructions:
Satisfy, commit and propagate operations of an AMO: This is an atomic execution of all the transitions needed to satisfy
the load operation, do the required arithmetic, and propagate the store
operation.
The transitions labeled can always be taken eagerly,
as soon as their precondition is satisfied, without excluding other
behavior; the cannot. Although Fetch instruction is marked with a
, it can be taken eagerly as long as it is not
taken infinitely many times.
An instance of a non-AMO load instruction, after being fetched, will
typically experience the following transitions in this order:
Before, between and after the transitions above, any number of
Pseudocode internal step transitions may appear. In addition, a Fetch instruction transition for fetching the
instruction in the next program location will be available until it is
taken.
This concludes the informal description of the operational model. The
following sections describe the formal operational model.
Intra-instruction Pseudocode Execution
The intra-instruction semantics for each instruction instance is
expressed as a state machine, essentially running the instruction
pseudocode. Given a pseudocode execution state, it computes the next
state. Most states identify a pending memory or register operation,
requested by the pseudocode, which the memory model has to do. The
states are (this is a tagged union; tags in small-caps):
Load_mem(kind, address, size, load_continuation)
- memory load
operation
Early_sc_fail(res_continuation)
- allow sc to fail early
Store_ea(kind, address, size, next_state)
- memory store
effective address
Store_memv(mem_value, store_continuation)
- memory store value
Fence(kind, next_state)
- fence
Read_reg(reg_name, read_continuation)
- register read
Write_reg(reg_name, reg_value, next_state)
- register write
Internal(next_state)
- pseudocode internal step
Done
- end of pseudocode
Here:
mem_value and reg_value are lists of bytes;
address is an integer of XLEN bits;
for load/store, kind identifies whether it is lr/sc,
acquire-RCpc/release-RCpc, acquire-RCsc/release-RCsc,
acquire-release-RCsc;
* for fence, kind identifies whether it is a normal or TSO, and (for
normal fences) the predecessor and successor ordering bits;
* reg_name identifies a register and a slice thereof (start and end bit
indices); and the continuations describe how the instruction instance will continue
for each value that might be provided by the surrounding memory model
(the load_continuation and read_continuation take the value loaded
from memory and read from the previous register write, the
store_continuation takes false for an sc that failed and true in
all other cases, and res_continuation takes false if the sc fails
and true otherwise).
For example, given the load instruction lw x1,0(x2), an execution will
typically go as follows. The initial execution state will be computed
from the pseudocode for the given opcode. This can be expected to be
Read_reg(x2, read_continuation). Feeding the most recently written
value of register x2 (the instruction semantics will be blocked if
necessary until the register value is available), say 0x4000, to
read_continuation returns Load_mem(plain_load, 0x4000, 4,
load_continuation). Feeding the 4-byte value loaded from memory
location 0x4000, say 0x42, to load_continuation returns
Write_reg(x1, 0x42, Done). Many Internal(next_state) states may
appear before and between the states above.
Notice that writing to memory is split into two steps, Store_ea and
Store_memv: the first one makes the memory footprint of the store
provisionally known, and the second one adds the value to be stored. We
ensure these are paired in the pseudocode (Store_ea followed by
Store_memv), but there may be other steps between them.
It is observable that the Store_ea can occur before the value to be
stored is determined. For example, for the litmus test
LB+fence.r.rw+data-po to be allowed by the operational model (as it is
by RVWMO), the first store in Hart 1 has to take the Store_ea step
before its value is determined, so that the second store can see it is
to a non-overlapping memory footprint, allowing the second store to be
committed out of order without violating coherence.
The pseudocode of each instruction performs at most one store or one
load, except for AMOs that perform exactly one load and one store. Those
memory accesses are then split apart into the architecturally atomic
units by the hart semantics (see Initiate memory load operations and Initiate memory store operation footprints below).
Informally, each bit of a register read should be satisfied from a
register write by the most recent (in program order) instruction
instance that can write that bit (or from the hart’s initial register
state if there is no such write). Hence, it is essential to know the
register write footprint of each instruction instance, which we
calculate when the instruction instance is created (see the Festch instruction action of
below). We ensure in the pseudocode that each instruction does at most
one register write to each register bit, and also that it does not try
to read a register value it just wrote.
Data-flow dependencies (address and data) in the model emerge from the
fact that each register read has to wait for the appropriate register
write to be executed (as described above).
Instruction Instance State
Each instruction instance _i has a state comprising:
program_loc, the memory address from which the instruction was
fetched;
instruction_kind, identifying whether this is a load, store, AMO,
fence, branch/jump or a simple instruction (this also includes a
kind similar to the one described for the pseudocode execution
states);
src_regs, the set of source _reg_name_s (including system
registers), as statically determined from the pseudocode of the
instruction;
dst_regs, the destination _reg_name_s (including system registers),
as statically determined from the pseudocode of the instruction;
pseudocode_state (or sometimes just state for short), one of (this
is a tagged union; tags in small-caps):
Plain(isa_state)
- ready to make a pseudocode transition
Pending_mem_loads(load_continuation)
- requesting memory load
operation(s)
Pending_mem_stores(store_continuation)
- requesting memory store
operation(s)
reg_reads, the register reads the instance has performed, including,
for each one, the register write slices it read from;
reg_writes, the register writes the instance has performed;
mem_loads, a set of memory load operations, and for each one the
as-yet-unsatisfied slices (the byte indices that have not been satisfied
yet), and, for the satisfied slices, the store slices (each consisting
of a memory store operation and subset of its byte indices) that
satisfied it.
mem_stores, a set of memory store operations, and for each one a
flag that indicates whether it has been propagated (passed to the shared
memory) or not.
information recording whether the instance is committed, finished,
etc.
Each memory load operation includes a memory footprint (address and
size). Each memory store operations includes a memory footprint, and,
when available, a value.
A load instruction instance with a non-empty mem_loads, for which all
the load operations are satisfied (i.e. there are no unsatisfied load
slices) is said to be entirely satisfied.
Informally, an instruction instance is said to have fully determined
data if the load (and sc) instructions feeding its source registers
are finished. Similarly, it is said to have a fully determined memory
footprint if the load (and sc) instructions feeding its memory
operation address register are finished. Formally, we first define the
notion of fully determined register write: a register write
from reg_writes of instruction instance
is said to be fully determined if one of the following
conditions hold:
is finished; or
the value written by is not affected by a memory
operation that has made (i.e. a value loaded from memory
or the result of sc), and, for every register read that
has made, that affects , the register
write from which read is fully determined (or
read from the initial register state).
Now, an instruction instance is said to have fully
determined data if for every register read from
reg_reads, the register writes that reads from are
fully determined. An instruction instance is said to
have a fully determined memory footprint if for every register read
from reg_reads that feeds into ’s
memory operation address, the register writes that reads
from are fully determined.
The rmem tool records, for every register write, the set of register
writes from other instructions that have been read by this instruction
at the point of performing the write. By carefully arranging the
pseudocode of the instructions covered by the tool we were able to make
it so that this is exactly the set of register writes on which the write
depends on.
Hart State
The model state of a single hart comprises:
hart_id, a unique identifier of the hart;
initial_register_state, the initial register value for each
register;
initial_fetch_address, the initial instruction fetch address;
instruction_tree, a tree of the instruction instances that have been
fetched (and not discarded), in program order.
Shared Memory State
The model state of the shared memory comprises a list of memory store
operations, in the order they propagated to the shared memory.
When a store operation is propagated to the shared memory it is simply
added to the end of the list. When a load operation is satisfied from
memory, for each byte of the load operation, the most recent
corresponding store slice is returned.
For most purposes, it is simpler to think of the shared memory as an
array, i.e., a map from memory locations to memory store operation
slices, where each memory location is mapped to a one-byte slice of the
most recent memory store operation to that location. However, this
abstraction is not detailed enough to properly handle the sc
instruction. The RVWMO allows store operations from the same hart as the
sc to intervene between the store operation of the sc and the store
operations the paired lr read from. To allow such store operations to
intervene, and forbid others, the array abstraction must be extended to
record more information. Here, we use a list as it is very simple, but a
more efficient and scalable implementations should probably use
something better.
Transitions
Each of the paragraphs below describes a single kind of system
transition. The description starts with a condition over the current
system state. The transition can be taken in the current state only if
the condition is satisfied. The condition is followed by an action that
is applied to that state when the transition is taken, in order to
generate the new system state.
Fetch instruction
A possible program-order-successor of instruction instance
can be fetched from address loc if:
it has not already been fetched, i.e., none of the immediate
successors of in the hart’s instruction_tree are from
loc; and
if ’s pseudocode has already written an address to
pc, then loc must be that address, otherwise loc is:
for a conditional branch, the successor address or the branch target
address;
for a (direct) jump and link instruction (jal), the target address;
for an indirect jump instruction (jalr), any address; and
for any other instruction, .
Action: construct a freshly initialized instruction instance
for the instruction in the program memory at loc,
with state Plain(isa_state), computed from the instruction pseudocode,
including the static information available from the pseudocode such as
its instruction_kind, src_regs, and dst_regs, and add
to the hart’s instruction_tree as a successor of
.
The possible next fetch addresses (loc) are available immediately
after fetching and the model does not need to wait for
the pseudocode to write to pc; this allows out-of-order execution, and
speculation past conditional branches and jumps. For most instructions
these addresses are easily obtained from the instruction pseudocode. The
only exception to that is the indirect jump instruction (jalr), where
the address depends on the value held in a register. In principle the
mathematical model should allow speculation to arbitrary addresses here.
The exhaustive search in the rmem tool handles this by running the
exhaustive search multiple times with a growing set of possible next
fetch addresses for each indirect jump. The initial search uses empty
sets, hence there is no fetch after indirect jump instruction until the
pseudocode of the instruction writes to pc, and then we use that value
for fetching the next instruction. Before starting the next iteration of
exhaustive search, we collect for each indirect jump (grouped by code
location) the set of values it wrote to pc in all the executions in
the previous search iteration, and use that as possible next fetch
addresses of the instruction. This process terminates when no new fetch
addresses are detected.
Initiate memory load operations
An instruction instance in state Plain(Load_mem(kind,
address, size, load_continuation)) can always initiate the
corresponding memory load operations. Action:
Construct the appropriate memory load operations :
if address is aligned to size then is a single
memory load operation of size bytes from address;
otherwise, is a set of size memory load
operations, each of one byte, from the addresses
.
set mem_loads of to ; and
update the state of to
Pending_mem_loads(load_continuation).
In [rvwmo-primitives] it is said that
misaligned memory accesses may be decomposed at any granularity. Here we
decompose them to one-byte accesses as this granularity subsumes all
others.
Satisfy memory load operation by forwarding from unpropagated stores
For a non-AMO load instruction instance in state
Pending_mem_loads(load_continuation), and a memory load operation
in that has
unsatisfied slices, the memory load operation can be partially or
entirely satisfied by forwarding from unpropagated memory store
operations by store instruction instances that are program-order-before
if:
all program-order-previous fence instructions with .sr and .pw
set are finished;
for every program-order-previous fence instruction, ,
with .sr and .pr set, and .pw not set, if is not
finished then all load instructions that are program-order-before
are entirely satisfied;
for every program-order-previous fence.tso instruction,
, that is not finished, all load instructions that are
program-order-before are entirely satisfied;
if is a load-acquire-RCsc, all program-order-previous
store-releases-RCsc are finished;
if is a load-acquire-release, all
program-order-previous instructions are finished;
all non-finished program-order-previous load-acquire instructions are
entirely satisfied; and
all program-order-previous store-acquire-release instructions are
finished;
Let be the set of all unpropagated memory store
operation slices from non-sc store instruction instances that are
program-order-before and have already calculated the
value to be stored, that overlap with the unsatisfied slices of
, and which are not superseded by intervening store
operations or store operations that are read from by an intervening
load. The last condition requires, for each memory store operation slice
in from instruction
:
that there is no store instruction program-order-between
and with a memory store operation overlapping
; and
that there is no load instruction program-order-between
and that was satisfied from an overlapping memory store
operation slice from a different hart.
Action:
update to indicate that
was satisfied by ; and
restart any speculative instructions which have violated coherence as
a result of this, i.e., for every non-finished instruction
that is a program-order-successor of ,
and every memory load operation of
that was satisfied from , if there exists a memory
store operation slice in , and
an overlapping memory store operation slice from a different memory
store operation in , and is not
from an instruction that is a program-order-successor of
, restart and its restart-dependents.
Where, the restart-dependents of instruction are:
program-order-successors of that have data-flow
dependency on a register write of ;
program-order-successors of that have a memory load
operation that reads from a memory store operation of
(by forwarding);
if is a load-acquire, all the program-order-successors
of ;
if is a load, for every fence, , with
.sr and .pr set, and .pw not set, that is a
program-order-successor of , all the load instructions
that are program-order-successors of ;
if is a load, for every fence.tso, ,
that is a program-order-successor of , all the load
instructions that are program-order-successors of ; and
(recursively) all the restart-dependents of all the instruction
instances above.
Forwarding memory store operations to a memory load might satisfy only
some slices of the load, leaving other slices unsatisfied.
A program-order-previous store operation that was not available when
taking the transition above might make provisionally
unsound (violating coherence) when it becomes available. That store will
prevent the load from being finished (see Finish instruction), and will cause it to
restart when that store operation is propagated (see Propagate store operation).
A consequence of the transition condition above is that
store-release-RCsc memory store operations cannot be forwarded to
load-acquire-RCsc instructions: does not include
memory store operations from finished stores (as those must be
propagated memory store operations), and the condition above requires
all program-order-previous store-releases-RCsc to be finished when the
load is acquire-RCsc.
Satisfy memory load operation from memory
For an instruction instance of a non-AMO load
instruction or an AMO instruction in the context of the Saitsfy, commit and propagate operations of an AMO transition,
any memory load operation in
that has unsatisfied slices, can be
satisfied from memory if all the conditions of <sat_by_forwarding, Saitsfy memory load operation by forwarding from unpropagated stores>> are satisfied. Action:
let be the memory store operation slices from memory
covering the unsatisfied slices of , and apply the
action of Satisfy memory operation by forwarding from unpropagates stores.
A load instruction instance in state
Pending_mem_loads(load_continuation) can be completed (not to be
confused with finished) if all the memory load operations
are entirely satisfied (i.e. there
are no unsatisfied slices). Action: update the state of
to Plain(load_continuation(mem_value)), where mem_value is assembled
from all the memory store operation slices that satisfied
.
Early sc fail
An sc instruction instance in state
Plain(Early_sc_fail(res_continuation)) can always be made to fail.
Action: update the state of to
Plain(res_continuation(false)).
Paired sc
An sc instruction instance in state
Plain(Early_sc_fail(res_continuation)) can continue its (potentially
successful) execution if is paired with an lr. Action:
update the state of to Plain(res_continuation(true)).
Initiate memory store operation footprints
An instruction instance in state Plain(Store_ea(kind,
address, size, next_state)) can always announce its pending memory
store operation footprint. Action:
construct the appropriate memory store operations
(without the store value):
if address is aligned to size then is a single
memory store operation of size bytes to address;
otherwise, is a set of size memory store
operations, each of one-byte size, to the addresses
.
set to ; and
update the state of to Plain(next_state).
Note that after taking the transition above the memory store operations
do not yet have their values. The importance of splitting this
transition from the transition below is that it allows other
program-order-successor store instructions to observe the memory
footprint of this instruction, and if they don’t overlap, propagate out
of order as early as possible (i.e. before the data register value
becomes available).
Instantiate memory store operation values
An instruction instance in state
Plain(Store_memv(mem_value, store_continuation)) can always
instantiate the values of the memory store operations
. Action:
split mem_value between the memory store operations
; and
update the state of to
Pending_mem_stores(store_continuation).
Commit store instruction
An uncommitted instruction instance of a non-sc store
instruction or an sc instruction in the context of the Commit and propagate store operation of an sc
transition, in state Pending_mem_stores(store_continuation), can be
committed (not to be confused with propagated) if:
has fully determined data;
all program-order-previous conditional branch and indirect jump
instructions are finished;
all program-order-previous fence instructions with .sw set are
finished;
all program-order-previous fence.tso instructions are finished;
all program-order-previous load-acquire instructions are finished;
all program-order-previous store-acquire-release instructions are
finished;
if is a store-release, all program-order-previous
instructions are finished;
all program-order-previous memory access instructions have a fully
determined memory footprint;
all program-order-previous store instructions, except for sc that failed,
have initiated and so have non-empty mem_stores; and
all program-order-previous load instructions have initiated and so have
non-empty mem_loads.
Action: record that i is committed.
Notice that if condition
8 is satisfied
the conditions
9 and
10 are also
satisfied, or will be satisfied after taking some eager transitions.
Hence, requiring them does not strengthen the model. By requiring them,
we guarantee that previous memory access instructions have taken enough
transitions to make their memory operations visible for the condition
check of , which is the next transition the instruction will take,
making that condition simpler.
Propagate store operation
For a committed instruction instance in state
Pending_mem_stores(store_continuation), and an unpropagated memory
store operation in
, can be
propagated if:
all memory store operations of program-order-previous store
instructions that overlap with have already
propagated;
all memory load operations of program-order-previous load instructions
that overlap with have already been satisfied, and
(the load instructions) are non-restartable (see definition below);
and
all memory load operations that were satisfied by forwarding
are entirely satisfied.
Where a non-finished instruction instance is
non-restartable if:
there does not exist a store instruction and an
unpropagated memory store operation of
such that applying the action of the Propagate store operation transition to
will result in the restart of ; and
restart any speculative instructions which have violated coherence as
a result of this, i.e., for every non-finished instruction
program-order-after and every memory
load operation of that was satisfied
from , if there exists a memory store operation
slice in that overlaps with
and is not from , and
is not from a program-order-successor of
, restart and its restart-dependents
(see Satisfy memory load operation by forwarding from unpropagated stores).
Commit and propagate store operation of an sc
An uncommitted sc instruction instance , from hart
, in state Pending_mem_stores(store_continuation), with
a paired lr that has been satisfied by some store
slices , can be committed and propagated at the same
time if:
is finished;
every memory store operation that has been forwarded to
is propagated;
the conditions of Propagate store instruction is satisfied (notice that an sc instruction can
only have one memory store operation); and
for every store slice from ,
has not been overwritten, in the shared memory, by a
store that is from a hart that is not , at any point
since was propagated to memory.
An sc instruction instance in state
Pending_mem_stores(store_continuation), that has not propagated its
memory store operation, can always be made to fail. Action:
clear ; and
update the state of to
Plain(store_continuation(false)).
For efficiency, the rmem tool allows this transition only when it is
not possible to take the Commit and propagate store operation of an sc transition. This does not affect the set of
allowed final states, but when explored interactively, if the sc
should fail one should use the Eaarly sc fail transition instead of waiting for this transition.
Complete store operations
A store instruction instance in state
Pending_mem_stores(store_continuation), for which all the memory store
operations in have been propagated,
can always be completed (not to be confused with finished). Action:
update the state of to
Plain(store_continuation(true)).
Satisfy, commit and propagate operations of an AMO
An AMO instruction instance in state
Pending_mem_loads(load_continuation) can perform its memory access if
it is possible to perform the following sequence of transitions with no
intervening transitions:
and in addition, the condition of Finish instruction, with the exception of not requiring
to be in state Plain(Done), holds after those
transitions. Action: perform the above sequence of transitions (this
does not include Finish instruction), one after the other, with no intervening
transitions.
Notice that program-order-previous stores cannot be forwarded to the
load of an AMO. This is simply because the sequence of transitions above
does not include the forwarding transition. But even if it did include
it, the sequence will fail when trying to do the Propagate store operation transition, as this
transition requires all program-order-previous store operations to
overlapping memory footprints to be propagated, and forwarding requires
the store operation to be unpropagated.
In addition, the store of an AMO cannot be forwarded to a
program-order-successor load. Before taking the transition above, the
store operation of the AMO does not have its value and therefore cannot
be forwarded; after taking the transition above the store operation is
propagated and therefore cannot be forwarded.
Commit fence
A fence instruction instance in state
Plain(Fence(kind, next_state)) can be committed if:
if is a normal fence and it has .pr set, all
program-order-previous load instructions are finished;
if is a normal fence and it has .pw set, all
program-order-previous store instructions are finished; and
if is a fence.tso, all program-order-previous load
and store instructions are finished.
Action:
record that is committed; and
update the state of to Plain(next_state).
Register read
An instruction instance in state
Plain(Read_reg(reg_name, read_cont)) can do a register read of
reg_name if every instruction instance that it needs to read from has
already performed the expected reg_name register write.
Let read_sources include, for each bit of reg_name, the write to
that bit by the most recent (in program order) instruction instance that
can write to that bit, if any. If there is no such instruction, the
source is the initial register value from initial_register_state. Let
reg_value be the value assembled from read_sources. Action:
add reg_name to with
read_sources and reg_value; and
update the state of to Plain(read_cont(reg_value)).
Register write
An instruction instance in state
Plain(Write_reg(reg_name, reg_value, next_state)) can always do a
reg_name register write. Action:
add reg_name to with
and reg_value; and
update the state of to Plain(next_state).
where is a pair of the set of all read_sources from
, and a flag that is true iff
is a load instruction instance that has already been
entirely satisfied.
Pseudocode internal step
An instruction instance in state
Plain(Internal(next_state)) can always do that pseudocode-internal
step. Action: update the state of to
Plain(next_state).
Finish instruction
A non-finished instruction instance in state Plain(Done)
can be finished if:
if is a load instruction:
all program-order-previous load-acquire instructions are finished;
all program-order-previous fence instructions with .sr set are
finished;
for every program-order-previous fence.tso instruction,
, that is not finished, all load instructions that are
program-order-before are finished; and
it is guaranteed that the values read by the memory load operations
of will not cause coherence violations, i.e., for any
program-order-previous instruction instance , let
be the combined footprint of propagated
memory store operations from store instructions program-order-between
and , and fixed memory store
operations that were forwarded to from store
instructions program-order-between and
including , and let
be the complement of
in the memory footprint of .
If is not empty:
has a fully determined memory footprint;
has no unpropagated memory store operations that
overlap with ; and
if is a load with a memory footprint that overlaps
with , then all the memory load
operations of that overlap with
are satisfied and
is non-restartable (see the Propagate store operation transition for how to determined if an
instruction is non-restartable).
Here, a memory store operation is called fixed if the store instruction
has fully determined data.
has a fully determined data; and
if is not a fence, all program-order-previous
conditional branch and indirect jump instructions are finished.
Action:
if is a conditional branch or indirect jump
instruction, discard any untaken paths of execution, i.e., remove all
instruction instances that are not reachable by the branch/jump taken in
instruction_tree; and
record the instruction as finished, i.e., set finished to true.
Limitations
The model covers user-level RV64I and RV64A. In particular, it does
not support the misaligned atomicity granule PMA or the total store
ordering extension "Ztso". It should be trivial to adapt the model to
RV32I/A and to the G, Q and C extensions, but we have never tried it.
This will involve, mostly, writing Sail code for the instructions, with
minimal, if any, changes to the concurrency model.
The model covers only normal memory accesses (it does not handle I/O
accesses).
The model does not cover TLB-related effects.
The model assumes the instruction memory is fixed. In particular, the
Fetch instruction transition does not generate memory load operations, and the shared
memory is not involved in the transition. Instead, the model depends on
an external oracle that provides an opcode when given a memory location.
The model does not cover exceptions, traps and interrupts.