1. Tech-Vector-Ext
  2. Messages

Re: vector strided stores when rs1=x0

Guy Lemieux
 

I think this is a bad idea for both loads and stores. If the intent is a single load or single store, then there should be another way to do it.

Using vector loads/stores with stride=0 is one way to read/write a vector from/to a memory-mapped FIFO. (I think we also discussed a way to do ordered writes for such cases earlier, which is necessary for FIFO-based communication; I don't recall whether this was discussed around strides. If there is a special way to declare ordered writes, then I'm only concerned with using a FIFO with that mode.)

Guy


On Mon, Nov 9, 2020 at 8:38 AM Krste Asanovic <krste@...> wrote:

Also on github as issue #595

In our earlier TG discussion in 9/18 meeting, we were in favor of
allowing vector strided load instructions with rs1=x0 to perform fewer
memory accesses than the number of active elements.  This allows
higher-performing splats of a scalar memory value into a vector.

In writing this up, I inadvertently made this true for stores too.
But on review, I can't see a reason to not also allow strided stores
(which are now unordered), to also perform fewer memory operations (in
effect, picking a random active element to write back).  The behavior
is indistinguishable from a possible legal execution of prior scheme,
and has potential niche use of storing element value to memory when it
is known all elements have same value.

https://github.com/riscv/riscv-v-spec/commit/398d453e3592efbac77cc8f6658009759901185a#diff-ea57dd7a8daf0aa62f553688c1970c8e6608945d25597f8661c5ea6670fb509c

I suppose we could also reserve the encoding with strided stores of
rs1=x0, but this would add some asymmetry.  Software could then get a
similar effect by settng vl=1 before the store.

Krste
Join tech-vector-ext@lists.riscv.org to automatically receive all group messages.