Hi all,

This proposal is a refinement and update of a previous thread: https://lists.riscv.org/g/tech-privileged-archive/message/488.  We noticed the current activities regarding HPM in Linux community and in Unix Platform Spec Task Group, so again we would like to call for attention to the fundamental problems of RISC-V HPM.  In brief, we plan to add 6 new CSRs to address these problems.  Please check https://github.com/NonerKao/PMU_enhancement_proposal/blob/master/proposal.md for a simple perf example and the details.

Thanks!

I have been working on a similar proposal myself, with overflow, interrupts, masking, and delegation. One of the key differences in my proposal is that it unifies each counter's configuration control into a per-counter register, by using mhpmevent* but with some fields reserved/assigned a meaning.

In your proposal, the control for counter3, for example, is in mcounteren (for interrupt enablement), mcounterovf (for overflow status), mcountermask (for which modes to count), and of course mhpmevent3. In my proposal, all of these would be contained in the existing per-counter configuration register, mhpmevent*. There is not much of a difference between these proposals, except that in your proposal, programming a counter may require read-modify-write'ing 5 registers (those 4 control plus the counter itself), whereas in my proposal it requires writing (and not read-modify-write'ing) only two registers. In practice, programming 4 counters would require 20 RMW's (20 csrr's and 20 csrw's and some glue ALU instructions in the general case -- some of those would be avoidable of course) in your proposal vs. 8 simple writes in mine -- four to set the event config, four to set/clear the counter registers. (I am a big fan of low-overhead perfmon interactions, to reduce the impact on the software-under-test.) With a shadow-CSR approach, both methods could even be supported on a single implementation, since it is really just a matter of where the bits are stored and how they are accessed, and not one of functionality.

From my count, roughly 8 or so bits would be needed in mhpmevent* to specify interrupt enable, masking mode, et al. These could be allocated from the top bits, allowing 32+ bits for ordinary event specification.

Another potential discussion point is, does overflow happen at 0x7fffffffffffffff -> 0x8000000000000000, or at 0xffffffffffffffff -> 0x0000000000000000? I have a bias towards the former so that even after overflow, the count is wholly contained in an XLEN-wide register treated as an unsigned number and accessible via a single read, which makes arithmetic convenient, but I know some people prefer to (or are used to?) have the overflow bit as a 33rd or 65th bit in a different register.

Lastly, a feature I have enjoyed using in the past (on another ISA) is the concept of a 'marked' bit in the mstatus register. If one allows masked counting based on whether this bit is set or clear, it allows additional filtering on when to count. For example, in a system with multiple processes, one set of processes could have the marked bit set, and the remaining processes could keep the marked bit clear. One can then count "total instructions in marked processes" and "total instructions in unmarked processes" in a single run on two different counters. In complicated systems, this can be enormously helpful. This is of course a bit intrusive in the architecture, as it requires adding a bit to mstatus, but the rest of the kernel just needs to save and restore this bit on context switches, without knowing its purpose.

As you point out, interrupts and overflows are the key show-stoppers with the current performance monitor architecture, and those are the most important to get added.

Brian

On Sun, Jul 19, 2020 at 10:47 PM alankao <alankao@...> wrote:

Hi all,

This proposal is a refinement and update of a previous thread: https://lists.riscv.org/g/tech-privileged-archive/message/488.  We noticed the current activities regarding HPM in Linux community and in Unix Platform Spec Task Group, so again we would like to call for attention to the fundamental problems of RISC-V HPM.  In brief, we plan to add 6 new CSRs to address these problems.  Please check https://github.com/NonerKao/PMU_enhancement_proposal/blob/master/proposal.md for a simple perf example and the details.

Thanks!

Brian,

I'm curious whether the 'marked' bit is a significant improvement on the mcountinhibit CSR, which could be swapped to enable counters for multiple processes.

      Bill

On 7/20/20 1:54 PM, Brian Grayson wrote:

EXTERNAL MAIL

I have been working on a similar proposal myself, with overflow, interrupts, masking, and delegation. One of the key differences in my proposal is that it unifies each counter's configuration control into a per-counter register, by using mhpmevent* but with some fields reserved/assigned a meaning.

In your proposal, the control for counter3, for example, is in mcounteren (for interrupt enablement), mcounterovf (for overflow status), mcountermask (for which modes to count), and of course mhpmevent3. In my proposal, all of these would be contained in the existing per-counter configuration register, mhpmevent*. There is not much of a difference between these proposals, except that in your proposal, programming a counter may require read-modify-write'ing 5 registers (those 4 control plus the counter itself), whereas in my proposal it requires writing (and not read-modify-write'ing) only two registers. In practice, programming 4 counters would require 20 RMW's (20 csrr's and 20 csrw's and some glue ALU instructions in the general case -- some of those would be avoidable of course) in your proposal vs. 8 simple writes in mine -- four to set the event config, four to set/clear the counter registers. (I am a big fan of low-overhead perfmon interactions, to reduce the impact on the software-under-test.) With a shadow-CSR approach, both methods could even be supported on a single implementation, since it is really just a matter of where the bits are stored and how they are accessed, and not one of functionality.

From my count, roughly 8 or so bits would be needed in mhpmevent* to specify interrupt enable, masking mode, et al. These could be allocated from the top bits, allowing 32+ bits for ordinary event specification.

Another potential discussion point is, does overflow happen at 0x7fffffffffffffff -> 0x8000000000000000, or at 0xffffffffffffffff -> 0x0000000000000000? I have a bias towards the former so that even after overflow, the count is wholly contained in an XLEN-wide register treated as an unsigned number and accessible via a single read, which makes arithmetic convenient, but I know some people prefer to (or are used to?) have the overflow bit as a 33rd or 65th bit in a different register.

Lastly, a feature I have enjoyed using in the past (on another ISA) is the concept of a 'marked' bit in the mstatus register. If one allows masked counting based on whether this bit is set or clear, it allows additional filtering on when to count. For example, in a system with multiple processes, one set of processes could have the marked bit set, and the remaining processes could keep the marked bit clear. One can then count "total instructions in marked processes" and "total instructions in unmarked processes" in a single run on two different counters. In complicated systems, this can be enormously helpful. This is of course a bit intrusive in the architecture, as it requires adding a bit to mstatus, but the rest of the kernel just needs to save and restore this bit on context switches, without knowing its purpose.

As you point out, interrupts and overflows are the key show-stoppers with the current performance monitor architecture, and those are the most important to get added.

Brian

On Sun, Jul 19, 2020 at 10:47 PM alankao <alankao@...> wrote:

Hi all,

This proposal is a refinement and update of a previous thread: https://lists.riscv.org/g/tech-privileged-archive/message/488.  We noticed the current activities regarding HPM in Linux community and in Unix Platform Spec Task Group, so again we would like to call for attention to the fundamental problems of RISC-V HPM.  In brief, we plan to add 6 new CSRs to address these problems.  Please check https://github.com/NonerKao/PMU_enhancement_proposal/blob/master/proposal.md for a simple perf example and the details.

Thanks!

Hi Brian,

I have been working on a similar proposal myself, with overflow, interrupts, masking, and delegation. One of the key differences in my proposal is that it unifies each counter's configuration control into a per-counter register, by using mhpmevent* but with some fields reserved/assigned a meaning.  <elaborating>

Thanks for sharing your experience and the elaboration. The overloading-hpmevent idea looks like the one in the SBI PMU extension threads in Unix Platform Spec TG by Greg. I have a bunch of questions.  How was your proposal later? Was it discussed in public? Did you manage to implement your idea into a working HW/S-mode SW/U-mode SW solution? If so, we can compete with each other by real benchmarking the LoC of the perf patch (assuming you do it on Linux) and the system overhead running a long perf sample.

Another potential discussion point is, does overflow happen at 0x7fffffffffffffff -> 0x8000000000000000, or at 0xffffffffffffffff -> 0x0000000000000000? I have a bias towards the former so that even after overflow, the count is wholly contained in an XLEN-wide register treated as an unsigned number and accessible via a single read, which makes arithmetic convenient, but I know some people prefer to (or are used to?) have the overflow bit as a 33rd or 65th bit in a different register.

I have no bias here as long as the HPM interrupt can be triggered. But somehow it seems to me that you assume the HPM registers are XLEN-width but actually they are not (yet?).  The spec says they should be 64-bit width although obviously nobody implements nor remember that.

Lastly, a feature I have enjoyed using in the past (on another ISA) is the concept of a 'marked' bit in the mstatus register. ... This is of course a bit intrusive in the architecture, as it requires adding a bit to mstatus, but the rest of the kernel just needs to save and restore this bit on context switches, without knowing its purpose.

Which architecture/OS are you referring to here? 

Through this discussion, we will understand which idea is the community prefer to: adding CSRs, overloading existing hpmevents, or any balanced compromise.  I believe the ultimate goal of this thread should be determining what the RISC-V HPM should really be like.

Best,
Alan

Bill,

Hopefully my last email also answers your question.

Greg

On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 8:04 PM Bill Huffman <huffman@...> wrote:

Brian,

I'm curious whether the 'marked' bit is a significant improvement on the mcountinhibit CSR, which could be swapped to enable counters for multiple processes.

      Bill

On 7/20/20 1:54 PM, Brian Grayson wrote:

EXTERNAL MAIL

I have been working on a similar proposal myself, with overflow, interrupts, masking, and delegation. One of the key differences in my proposal is that it unifies each counter's configuration control into a per-counter register, by using mhpmevent* but with some fields reserved/assigned a meaning.

In your proposal, the control for counter3, for example, is in mcounteren (for interrupt enablement), mcounterovf (for overflow status), mcountermask (for which modes to count), and of course mhpmevent3. In my proposal, all of these would be contained in the existing per-counter configuration register, mhpmevent*. There is not much of a difference between these proposals, except that in your proposal, programming a counter may require read-modify-write'ing 5 registers (those 4 control plus the counter itself), whereas in my proposal it requires writing (and not read-modify-write'ing) only two registers. In practice, programming 4 counters would require 20 RMW's (20 csrr's and 20 csrw's and some glue ALU instructions in the general case -- some of those would be avoidable of course) in your proposal vs. 8 simple writes in mine -- four to set the event config, four to set/clear the counter registers. (I am a big fan of low-overhead perfmon interactions, to reduce the impact on the software-under-test.) With a shadow-CSR approach, both methods could even be supported on a single implementation, since it is really just a matter of where the bits are stored and how they are accessed, and not one of functionality.

From my count, roughly 8 or so bits would be needed in mhpmevent* to specify interrupt enable, masking mode, et al. These could be allocated from the top bits, allowing 32+ bits for ordinary event specification.

Another potential discussion point is, does overflow happen at 0x7fffffffffffffff -> 0x8000000000000000, or at 0xffffffffffffffff -> 0x0000000000000000? I have a bias towards the former so that even after overflow, the count is wholly contained in an XLEN-wide register treated as an unsigned number and accessible via a single read, which makes arithmetic convenient, but I know some people prefer to (or are used to?) have the overflow bit as a 33rd or 65th bit in a different register.

Lastly, a feature I have enjoyed using in the past (on another ISA) is the concept of a 'marked' bit in the mstatus register. If one allows masked counting based on whether this bit is set or clear, it allows additional filtering on when to count. For example, in a system with multiple processes, one set of processes could have the marked bit set, and the remaining processes could keep the marked bit clear. One can then count "total instructions in marked processes" and "total instructions in unmarked processes" in a single run on two different counters. In complicated systems, this can be enormously helpful. This is of course a bit intrusive in the architecture, as it requires adding a bit to mstatus, but the rest of the kernel just needs to save and restore this bit on context switches, without knowing its purpose.

As you point out, interrupts and overflows are the key show-stoppers with the current performance monitor architecture, and those are the most important to get added.

Brian

On Sun, Jul 19, 2020 at 10:47 PM alankao <alankao@...> wrote:

Hi all,

This proposal is a refinement and update of a previous thread: https://lists.riscv.org/g/tech-privileged-archive/message/488.  We noticed the current activities regarding HPM in Linux community and in Unix Platform Spec Task Group, so again we would like to call for attention to the fundamental problems of RISC-V HPM.  In brief, we plan to add 6 new CSRs to address these problems.  Please check https://github.com/NonerKao/PMU_enhancement_proposal/blob/master/proposal.md for a simple perf example and the details.

Thanks!

The 'marked bit' in my proposal is different from a per-counter active bit, and may be a bit hard to explain well, but I'll try.

To me, there are two very different performance monitor approaches for system software:

- Linux-style, where one uses a tool like perf, and perfmon state is saved and restored on context switches. In this case, a 'marked bit' is not needed, as one can just control everything on a per-process basis

- embedded bare-metal whole-system performance monitoring, where there is no support like perf. This is where the 'marked bit' becomes more obvious, where basically one configures the counters to be free-running, except for the masking. So for example, consider an embedded application where there is the bread-and-butter ordinary work, but there is also some kind of exceptional/unordinary work (bad packet checksum, new route to establish, network link up/down, etc as networking examples). One could set and clear the marked bit on entry and exit from these routines, allowing easy profiling of everything, or of just the ordinary work, or of just the exceptional work, by using the marked bit. The same could be done by having each entry/exit point reprogram N counters, or altering a global mcountinhibit, but both of those approaches fall short. The first one forces a recompile of your system software whenever you want to change events, or a swapin/swapout of perfmon state (just like a context switch) when entering/leaving these routines, while the marked bit just requires setting a single bit; the second one (using mcountinhibit) forces one to choose between counting or not counting, and doesn't allow you to count marked-bit activities on one counter, and non-marked-bit activities on another counter, and all activities (both marked and unmarked) on a third counter.

If all of the embedded customers will be using a perf-style approach with context-switching of perfmon registers, I think I can agree that the marked bit is not as useful, but I don't think that will be true for all of our customers.

Brian

On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 11:30 PM Greg Favor <gfavor@...> wrote:

Bill,

Hopefully my last email also answers your question.

Greg

On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 8:04 PM Bill Huffman <huffman@...> wrote:

Brian,

I'm curious whether the 'marked' bit is a significant improvement on the mcountinhibit CSR, which could be swapped to enable counters for multiple processes.

      Bill

On 7/20/20 1:54 PM, Brian Grayson wrote:

EXTERNAL MAIL

I have been working on a similar proposal myself, with overflow, interrupts, masking, and delegation. One of the key differences in my proposal is that it unifies each counter's configuration control into a per-counter register, by using mhpmevent* but with some fields reserved/assigned a meaning.

In your proposal, the control for counter3, for example, is in mcounteren (for interrupt enablement), mcounterovf (for overflow status), mcountermask (for which modes to count), and of course mhpmevent3. In my proposal, all of these would be contained in the existing per-counter configuration register, mhpmevent*. There is not much of a difference between these proposals, except that in your proposal, programming a counter may require read-modify-write'ing 5 registers (those 4 control plus the counter itself), whereas in my proposal it requires writing (and not read-modify-write'ing) only two registers. In practice, programming 4 counters would require 20 RMW's (20 csrr's and 20 csrw's and some glue ALU instructions in the general case -- some of those would be avoidable of course) in your proposal vs. 8 simple writes in mine -- four to set the event config, four to set/clear the counter registers. (I am a big fan of low-overhead perfmon interactions, to reduce the impact on the software-under-test.) With a shadow-CSR approach, both methods could even be supported on a single implementation, since it is really just a matter of where the bits are stored and how they are accessed, and not one of functionality.

From my count, roughly 8 or so bits would be needed in mhpmevent* to specify interrupt enable, masking mode, et al. These could be allocated from the top bits, allowing 32+ bits for ordinary event specification.

Another potential discussion point is, does overflow happen at 0x7fffffffffffffff -> 0x8000000000000000, or at 0xffffffffffffffff -> 0x0000000000000000? I have a bias towards the former so that even after overflow, the count is wholly contained in an XLEN-wide register treated as an unsigned number and accessible via a single read, which makes arithmetic convenient, but I know some people prefer to (or are used to?) have the overflow bit as a 33rd or 65th bit in a different register.

Lastly, a feature I have enjoyed using in the past (on another ISA) is the concept of a 'marked' bit in the mstatus register. If one allows masked counting based on whether this bit is set or clear, it allows additional filtering on when to count. For example, in a system with multiple processes, one set of processes could have the marked bit set, and the remaining processes could keep the marked bit clear. One can then count "total instructions in marked processes" and "total instructions in unmarked processes" in a single run on two different counters. In complicated systems, this can be enormously helpful. This is of course a bit intrusive in the architecture, as it requires adding a bit to mstatus, but the rest of the kernel just needs to save and restore this bit on context switches, without knowing its purpose.

As you point out, interrupts and overflows are the key show-stoppers with the current performance monitor architecture, and those are the most important to get added.

Brian

On Sun, Jul 19, 2020 at 10:47 PM alankao <alankao@...> wrote:

Hi all,

This proposal is a refinement and update of a previous thread: https://lists.riscv.org/g/tech-privileged-archive/message/488.  We noticed the current activities regarding HPM in Linux community and in Unix Platform Spec Task Group, so again we would like to call for attention to the fundamental problems of RISC-V HPM.  In brief, we plan to add 6 new CSRs to address these problems.  Please check https://github.com/NonerKao/PMU_enhancement_proposal/blob/master/proposal.md for a simple perf example and the details.

Thanks!

The 'marked bit' in my proposal is different from a per-counter active bit, and may be a bit hard to explain well, but I'll try.

To me, there are two very different performance monitor approaches for system software:

- Linux-style, where one uses a tool like perf, and perfmon state is saved and restored on context switches. In this case, a 'marked bit' is not needed, as one can just control everything on a per-process basis

- embedded bare-metal whole-system performance monitoring, where there is no support like perf. This is where the 'marked bit' becomes more obvious, where basically one configures the counters to be free-running, except for the masking. So for example, consider an embedded application where there is the bread-and-butter ordinary work, but there is also some kind of exceptional/unordinary work (bad packet checksum, new route to establish, network link up/down, etc as networking examples). One could set and clear the marked bit on entry and exit from these routines, allowing easy profiling of everything, or of just the ordinary work, or of just the exceptional work, by using the marked bit. The same could be done by having each entry/exit point reprogram N counters, or altering a global mcountinhibit, but both of those approaches fall short. The first one forces a recompile of your system software whenever you want to change events, or a swapin/swapout of perfmon state (just like a context switch) when entering/leaving these routines, while the marked bit just requires setting a single bit; the second one (using mcountinhibit) forces one to choose between counting or not counting, and doesn't allow you to count marked-bit activities on one counter, and non-marked-bit activities on another counter, and all activities (both marked and unmarked) on a third counter.

If all of the embedded customers will be using a perf-style approach with context-switching of perfmon registers, I think I can agree that the marked bit is not as useful, but I don't think that will be true for all of our customers.

Brian

Hi All,

 

The proposed SBI PMU extension is a set of APIs between M-mode and HS-mode (also between HS-mode and VS-mode) such that no RISC-V spec changes are required for existing HPMCOUNTERs.

 

The high-level view of SBI PMU extension is as follows:

1. The SBI PMU calls are only for discovering and configuring HARDWARE/SOFTWARE counters and events
2. The HARDWARE/SOFTWARE counters will be read directly from S-mode software without any SBI calls
3. There are two suggested approaches for overflow handling:
1. No overflow interrupt. The S-mode software will use periodic timer interrupts to track counter overflows. This will be imprecise software approach for detecting overflow
2. Per-HART edge-triggered interrupt routed through PLIC (or some other platform interrupt controller). The per-HART interrupt will have to be routed through PLIC because we don’t have interrupts defined in MIP/MIE CSRs for counter overflows. Making this interrupts edge-triggered will not require S-mode software to clear the interrupt using SBI call

 

The SBI PMU extension does not prevent anyone in defining new RISC-V PMU extension. Although, whatever new RISC-V PMU extension is defined should consider H-extension and also provide dedicated CSRs for S-mode.

 

In future, when a new RISC-V PMU extension is available in RISC-V privilege spec, the SBI PMU extension will continue to exist and will be mostly used for SOFTWARE counters provided by SBI implementation (OpenSBI or Hypervisors) to the S-mode software.

 

Regards,

Anup

 

From: tech-privileged@... <tech-privileged@...> On Behalf Of Brian Grayson
Sent: 21 July 2020 10:45
To: alankao <alankao@...>
Cc: tech-privileged@...
Subject: Re: [RISC-V] [tech-privileged] A proposal to enhance RISC-V HPM (Hardware Performance Monitor)

 

Hi, Alan.

 

My proposal is still a work in progress, hence has not been shared publicly, but is significantly based on a proven architecture with about 30 years in the field and a few billion shipping cores, if not more -- the PowerPC performance monitor implementation. I did the in-house Linux kernel patches and tool support for it about two decades ago at Motorola :) so I used to know it quite well, and can see how a similar approach solves some of the current problems that we all have encountered with the current RISC-V approach. I am fairly new to the RISC-V ecosystem, so I was not aware of the work that you have done in the past; thanks for the pointer to that.

 

The SBI PMU extensions is more about the API between what perf (or another tool) communicates, and how the M-mode software interprets it, and not about actually changing the hardware interpretation of mhpmevent bits, at least that was my understanding.

 

I am glad that so many of us are converging on all the same fundamental needs!

 

Brian

 

On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 7:38 PM alankao <alankao@...> wrote:

Hi Brian,

I have been working on a similar proposal myself, with overflow, interrupts, masking, and delegation. One of the key differences in my proposal is that it unifies each counter's configuration control into a per-counter register, by using mhpmevent* but with some fields reserved/assigned a meaning.  <elaborating>

Thanks for sharing your experience and the elaboration. The overloading-hpmevent idea looks like the one in the SBI PMU extension threads in Unix Platform Spec TG by Greg. I have a bunch of questions.  How was your proposal later? Was it discussed in public? Did you manage to implement your idea into a working HW/S-mode SW/U-mode SW solution? If so, we can compete with each other by real benchmarking the LoC of the perf patch (assuming you do it on Linux) and the system overhead running a long perf sample.

Another potential discussion point is, does overflow happen at 0x7fffffffffffffff -> 0x8000000000000000, or at 0xffffffffffffffff -> 0x0000000000000000? I have a bias towards the former so that even after overflow, the count is wholly contained in an XLEN-wide register treated as an unsigned number and accessible via a single read, which makes arithmetic convenient, but I know some people prefer to (or are used to?) have the overflow bit as a 33rd or 65th bit in a different register.

I have no bias here as long as the HPM interrupt can be triggered. But somehow it seems to me that you assume the HPM registers are XLEN-width but actually they are not (yet?).  The spec says they should be 64-bit width although obviously nobody implements nor remember that.

Lastly, a feature I have enjoyed using in the past (on another ISA) is the concept of a 'marked' bit in the mstatus register. ... This is of course a bit intrusive in the architecture, as it requires adding a bit to mstatus, but the rest of the kernel just needs to save and restore this bit on context switches, without knowing its purpose.

Which architecture/OS are you referring to here? 

Through this discussion, we will understand which idea is the community prefer to: adding CSRs, overloading existing hpmevents, or any balanced compromise.  I believe the ultimate goal of this thread should be determining what the RISC-V HPM should really be like.

Best,
Alan

Brian,

I think the advantages you explain are exactly the reason why I was asking whether the marked bit was a significant improvement.  I think the functionality is extremely similar to swapping mcountinhibit CSR values.  For example, there can be one counter that counts marked activities and another that counts non-marked activities.  This would be done by having two counters set the same ways except that one inhibit bit was set in one mcountinhibit value and the other was set in the other.

It seems to me that the advantage of the marked bit is that there isn't a register to swap.  But the bit in the status register still needs to be changed at those same times.  So, I'm seeing only tiny differences - such as that, with the marked bit, there's no need for a location to save a mcountinhibit value when it's not being used.  And presumably supervisor can change the marked bit in status.  On the other hand, the mcountinhibit method allows the effect of more than two values of the marked bit by having more than two mcountinhibit values.

So, it doesn't seem to me a very large improvement once mcountinhibit already exists, even for the embedded cases where context-switching of permon registers is not done.

      Bill

On 7/20/20 10:25 PM, Brian Grayson wrote:

EXTERNAL MAIL

The 'marked bit' in my proposal is different from a per-counter active bit, and may be a bit hard to explain well, but I'll try.

To me, there are two very different performance monitor approaches for system software:

- Linux-style, where one uses a tool like perf, and perfmon state is saved and restored on context switches. In this case, a 'marked bit' is not needed, as one can just control everything on a per-process basis

- embedded bare-metal whole-system performance monitoring, where there is no support like perf. This is where the 'marked bit' becomes more obvious, where basically one configures the counters to be free-running, except for the masking. So for example, consider an embedded application where there is the bread-and-butter ordinary work, but there is also some kind of exceptional/unordinary work (bad packet checksum, new route to establish, network link up/down, etc as networking examples). One could set and clear the marked bit on entry and exit from these routines, allowing easy profiling of everything, or of just the ordinary work, or of just the exceptional work, by using the marked bit. The same could be done by having each entry/exit point reprogram N counters, or altering a global mcountinhibit, but both of those approaches fall short. The first one forces a recompile of your system software whenever you want to change events, or a swapin/swapout of perfmon state (just like a context switch) when entering/leaving these routines, while the marked bit just requires setting a single bit; the second one (using mcountinhibit) forces one to choose between counting or not counting, and doesn't allow you to count marked-bit activities on one counter, and non-marked-bit activities on another counter, and all activities (both marked and unmarked) on a third counter.

If all of the embedded customers will be using a perf-style approach with context-switching of perfmon registers, I think I can agree that the marked bit is not as useful, but I don't think that will be true for all of our customers.

Brian

On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 11:30 PM Greg Favor <gfavor@...> wrote:

Bill,

Hopefully my last email also answers your question.

Greg

On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 8:04 PM Bill Huffman <huffman@...> wrote:

Brian,

I'm curious whether the 'marked' bit is a significant improvement on the mcountinhibit CSR, which could be swapped to enable counters for multiple processes.

      Bill

On 7/20/20 1:54 PM, Brian Grayson wrote:

EXTERNAL MAIL

I have been working on a similar proposal myself, with overflow, interrupts, masking, and delegation. One of the key differences in my proposal is that it unifies each counter's configuration control into a per-counter register, by using mhpmevent* but with some fields reserved/assigned a meaning.

In your proposal, the control for counter3, for example, is in mcounteren (for interrupt enablement), mcounterovf (for overflow status), mcountermask (for which modes to count), and of course mhpmevent3. In my proposal, all of these would be contained in the existing per-counter configuration register, mhpmevent*. There is not much of a difference between these proposals, except that in your proposal, programming a counter may require read-modify-write'ing 5 registers (those 4 control plus the counter itself), whereas in my proposal it requires writing (and not read-modify-write'ing) only two registers. In practice, programming 4 counters would require 20 RMW's (20 csrr's and 20 csrw's and some glue ALU instructions in the general case -- some of those would be avoidable of course) in your proposal vs. 8 simple writes in mine -- four to set the event config, four to set/clear the counter registers. (I am a big fan of low-overhead perfmon interactions, to reduce the impact on the software-under-test.) With a shadow-CSR approach, both methods could even be supported on a single implementation, since it is really just a matter of where the bits are stored and how they are accessed, and not one of functionality.

From my count, roughly 8 or so bits would be needed in mhpmevent* to specify interrupt enable, masking mode, et al. These could be allocated from the top bits, allowing 32+ bits for ordinary event specification.

Another potential discussion point is, does overflow happen at 0x7fffffffffffffff -> 0x8000000000000000, or at 0xffffffffffffffff -> 0x0000000000000000? I have a bias towards the former so that even after overflow, the count is wholly contained in an XLEN-wide register treated as an unsigned number and accessible via a single read, which makes arithmetic convenient, but I know some people prefer to (or are used to?) have the overflow bit as a 33rd or 65th bit in a different register.

Lastly, a feature I have enjoyed using in the past (on another ISA) is the concept of a 'marked' bit in the mstatus register. If one allows masked counting based on whether this bit is set or clear, it allows additional filtering on when to count. For example, in a system with multiple processes, one set of processes could have the marked bit set, and the remaining processes could keep the marked bit clear. One can then count "total instructions in marked processes" and "total instructions in unmarked processes" in a single run on two different counters. In complicated systems, this can be enormously helpful. This is of course a bit intrusive in the architecture, as it requires adding a bit to mstatus, but the rest of the kernel just needs to save and restore this bit on context switches, without knowing its purpose.

As you point out, interrupts and overflows are the key show-stoppers with the current performance monitor architecture, and those are the most important to get added.

Brian

On Sun, Jul 19, 2020 at 10:47 PM alankao <alankao@...> wrote:

Hi all,

This proposal is a refinement and update of a previous thread: https://lists.riscv.org/g/tech-privileged-archive/message/488.  We noticed the current activities regarding HPM in Linux community and in Unix Platform Spec Task Group, so again we would like to call for attention to the fundamental problems of RISC-V HPM.  In brief, we plan to add 6 new CSRs to address these problems.  Please check https://github.com/NonerKao/PMU_enhancement_proposal/blob/master/proposal.md for a simple perf example and the details.

Thanks!