CS61C Spring 2017 Project 3-2: CPU

TA: Andrew Lin, Steven Chen

Due Sunday, March 26th, 2017 @ 11:59 PM


IMPORTANT INFO - PLEASE READ


Overview

In this project you will be using Logisim to implement a 16-bit two-cycle processor based on RPIS. This project is meant to give you a better understanding of the actual MIPS datapath. In fact, after this project you would have everything you needed to know in order to build a MIPS CPU in Logisim that could understand your assembled and linked output from Project 2!

In part II, you will complete a 2-stage pipelined processor!

0) Obtaining the Files

We have added the CPU template (cpu.circ) and harness (run.circ), the data memory module (mem.circ), and a basic assembler (assembler.py) to help you test your CPU. Please fetch and merge the changes from the proj3-2 branch of the starter repo. For example, if you have set the proj3-starter remote link:

cd proj3-XXX                  # Go inside the project directory
git checkout -b proj3-2         # Make a new branch for 3-2
git fetch proj3-starter
git merge proj3-starter/proj3-2-starter -m "merge proj3-2 skeleton code"
Don't worry if you see a lot of output after running the merge command. A lot of the files from 3-1 were just moved to new, separate directories.

If you do not have the proj3-starter remote link from part I, you can run:

git remote add proj3-starter https://github.com/61c-teach/sp17-proj3-starter.git

If you do have some other inorrect value for the proj3-starter remote link, delete it first by running:

git remote rm proj3-starter

1) Getting Started - Processor

We have provided a skeleton for your processor in cpu.circ. Your processor will contain an instance of your ALU and Register File, as well as a memory unit provided in your starter kit. You are responsible for constructing the entire datapath and control from scratch. Your completed processor should implement the ISA detailed below in the section Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) using a two-cycle pipeline, specified below.

Your processor will get its program from the processor harness run.circ. Your processor will output the address of an instruction, and accept the instruction at that address as an input. Inspect run.circ to see exactly what's going on. (This same harness will be used to test your final submission, so make sure your CPU fits in the harness before submitting your work!) Your processor has 2 inputs that come from the harness:

Input Name Bit Width Description
INSTRUCTION 16 Driven with the instruction at the instruction memory address identified by the FETCH_ADDRESS (see below).
CLOCK 1 The input for the clock. As with the register file, this can be sent into subcircuits (e.g. the CLK input for your register file) or attached directly to the clock inputs of memory units in Logisim, but should not otherwise be gated (i.e., do not invert it, do not AND it with anything, etc.).

Your processor must provide 6 outputs to the harness:

Output Name Bit Width Description
$s0 16 Driven with the contents of $s0. FOR TESTING
$s1 16 Driven with the contents of $s1. FOR TESTING
$s2 16 Driven with the contents of $s2. FOR TESTING
$ra 16 Driven with the contents of $ra. FOR TESTING
$sp 16 Driven with the contents of $sp. FOR TESTING
FETCH_ADDRESS 16 This output is used to select which instruction is presented to the processor on the INSTRUCTION input.

Just like in part I, be careful not to move the input or output pins! You should ensure that your processor is correctly loaded by a fresh copy of run.circ before you submit. You can download a fresh copy from the starter repo website.

1.5) Getting Started - Memory

The memory unit is already fully implemented for you! Here's a quick summary of its inputs and outputs:

Output Name In- or Out-put? Bit Width Description
A: ADDR In 16 Address to read/write to in Memory
D: WRITE DATA In 16 Value to be written to Memory
En: WRITE ENABLE In 1 Equal to one on any instructions that write to memory, and zero otherwise
Clock In 1 Driven by the clock input to cpu.circ
D: READ DATA Out 16 Driven by the data stored at the specified address.

2) Pipelining

Your processor will have a 2-stage pipeline:

  1. Instruction Fetch: An instruction is fetched from the instruction memory.
  2. Execute: The instruction is decoded, executed, and committed (written back). This is a combination of the remaining stages of a normal MIPS pipeline.

You should note that data hazards do NOT pose a problem for this design, since all accesses to all sources of data happens only in a single pipeline stage. However, there are still control hazards to deal with. Our ISA does not expose branch delay slots to software. This means that the instruction immediately after a branch or jump is not necessarily executed if the branch is taken. This makes your task a bit more complex. By the time you have figured out that a branch or jump is in the execute stage, you have already accessed the instruction memory and pulled out (possibly) the wrong instruction. You will therefore need to "kill" instructions that are being fetched if the instruction under execution is a jump or a taken branch. Instruction kills for this project MUST be accomplished by MUXing a nop into the instruction stream and sending the nop into the Execute stage instead of using the fetched instruction. Notice that 0x0000 is a nop instruction; please use this, as it will simplify grading and testing. You should only kill if a branch is taken (do not kill otherwise), but do kill on every type of jump.

Because all of the control and execution is handled in the Execute stage, your processor should be more or less indistinguishable from a single-cycle implementation, barring the one-cycle startup latency and the branch/jump delays. However, we will be enforcing the two-pipeline design. If you are unsure about pipelining, it is perfectly fine (maybe even recommended) to first implement a single-cycle processor. This will allow you to first verify that your instruction decoding, control signals, arithmetic operations, and memory accesses are all working properly. From a single-cycle processor you can then split off the Instruction Fetch stage with a few additions and a few logical tweaks. Some things to consider:

You might also notice a bootstrapping problem here: during the first cycle, the instruction register sitting between the pipeline stages won't contain an instruction loaded from memory. How do we deal with this? It happens that Logisim automatically sets registers to zero on reset; the instruction register will then contain a nop. We will allow you to depend on this behavior of Logisim. Remember to go to Simulate --> Reset Simulation (Ctrl+R) to reset your processor.

2.5) Controls

You can probably guess that control signals will play a very large part in this project. Figuring out all of the control signals may seem intimidating. We suggest taking a look at Discussion 6 to get started, and to remember that there is not a definitive set of control signals--walk through the datapath with different types of instructions, and when you see a mux or other component think about what selector/enable value you will need for that instruction.

Additionally, implementing the control signals can be done in many ways, including implementing the corresponding truth tables and using comparators. Since you are welcome to use any built-in Logisim circuits, we suggest using whichever component makes the most sense to you, whether performing logical operations on instruction bits and/or comparing fields to certain values.

3) RPIS: The Instruction Set Architecture

Your CPU will support the instructions listed below. Since you can't use the Green Sheet to reference for these instructions, the same information has been reproduced for RPIS below. There are some important differences to understand between MIPS and RPIS, and they are explained below (please make sure that you understand the new format of instructions before you start implementing it!)

Instruction Formats

The Instructions

Opcode
/Funct
Type Instruction Format Behavior
0x0 R Shift Left Logical sll $rd, $rs, $rt R[rd] = R[rs] << R[rt][4:0]
0x1 R Shift Right Logical srl $rd, $rs, $rt R[rd] = R[rs] >>> R[rt][4:0]
0x2 R Add add $rd, $rs, $rt R[rd] = R[rs] + R[rt]
0x3 R And and $rd, $rs, $rt R[rd] = R[rs] & R[rt]
0x4 R Or or $rd, $rs, $rt R[rd] = R[rs] | R[rt]
0x5 R Exclusive Or xor $rd, $rs, $rt R[rd] = R[rs] ^ R[rt]
0x6 R Set Less Than (Signed) slt $rd, $rs, $rt R[rd] = (R[rs] < R[rt]) ? 1 : 0
0x7 R Multiply (Unsigned) mult $rs, $rt R[HI] = (R[rs] * R[rt])[31:16];
R[LO] = (R[rs] * R[rt])[15:0];
0x1 U Load Upper Immediate lui imm R[LO] = {imm, 0b000000} = imm << 6
0x2 U Jump/Jump and Link j $rd, label PC = JumpAddr; R[rd] = PC + 2;
JumpAddr = {PC[15:10], imm};
0x3 I Jump Register
/Jump and Link Register
jr $rd, $rs, imm PC = R[rs] + SignExt(imm);
R[rd] = PC + 2;
0x4 I Branch on Equal beq $rs, $rd label if (R[rs] == R[rd]) PC = PC + SignExt(imm)
0x5 I Branch on Not Equal bne $rs, $rd label if (R[rs] != R[rd]) PC = PC + SignExt(imm)
0x6 I Add Immediate addi $rd, $rs imm R[rd] = R[rs] + SignExt(imm)
0x7 I Set Less Than Immediate slti $rd, $rs imm R[rd] = R[rs] < SignExt(imm) ? 1 : 0
0x8 I And Immediate andi $rd, $rs imm R[rd] = R[rs] & ZeroExt(imm)
0x9 I Or Immediate ori $rd, $rs imm R[rd] = R[rs] | ZeroExt(imm)
0xa I Load HalfWord lh $rd, offset($rs) R[rd] = M[addr];
addr = R[rs] + SignExt(offset)
0xb I Store HalfWord sh $rd, offset($rs) M[addr] = R[rd];
addr = R[rs] + SignExt(offset)
0xc I Move From High mfhi $rd R[rd] = R[HI]
0xd I Move From Low mflo $rd R[rd] = R[LO]

Notable Differences from MIPS / Clarifications

Jumps and Linking

In RPIS, there are only two jump instructions, jump and jump register. For jump, the jump address is calculated by taking the 10 bit immediate (as it is a U-type instruction), and prepending the 6 most significant bits from the PC. In other words, using "," to indicate concatenation, JumpAddr = {PC[15:10], immediate}. For example, if the immediate was 0x1a7 = 0b0110100111 and the PC was 0xabcd = 0b1010101111001101, then JumpAddr = {101010, 0110100111} = 0b1010100110100111 = 0xa9a7.

For jump register, since it is now an I-type instruction the immediate is also used to calculate the address to jump to. Specifically, the PC will be set to the address in $rs plus immediate bytes, or PC = JumpAddr = R[rs] + immediate. If you just wanted to jump to the exact address in $rs, as with jump register in MIPS, then the immediate would just be 0.

Instead of having explicit link versions of these jump instructions, linking is done by using the register specified by $rd as the link register (in MIPS the link register would automatically be specified as $ra). That is, if $rd is say register $s0, then the address of the next instruction after the current PC (before the jump) would be saved in $s0 (if you wanted to have the same behavior as in MIPS, then you would always have $rs = $ra = 0b001). However, note that if $rd is the zero register, then the next instruction after the PC is not saved at all (and no linking is done), as the zero register cannot be written to.

Therefore, to execute the same behavior as jalr $s0 in MIPS, you would call jr $ra $s0 0, such that R[ra] = PC + 2 and then PC = R[s0]. You may have noticed that the $rd field for U-type instructions is only 2 bits, which means that for jump, our $rd/link register can only be registers 0-3, or $0, $ra, $s0, and $s1.

Branches

In RPIS, the immediate/offset in branch instructions is interpreted as the number of bytes from PC to the label address. This is different from the use of word offset in MIPS, and you may notice that the LSB bit of the immediate/offset will always be 0, but this behavior should be more straightforward to implement along with jr.

Load Upper Immediate

Since our immediate for I-Type instructions is only 6 bits now, we would not be able to load a full 16 bit immediate if lui could only load 6 bits. Therefore, in RPIS, lui is now a U-Type instruction with a 10 bit immediate, where the 10 bit immediate value is loaded into the special $LO register (and mflo can then be used to load from the $LO register). The following sequence of instructions would then load a 16 bit immediate (e.g. 0xABCD = 0b1010,1011,1100,1101) into $s0:

lui 0b1010101111
mflo $s0
ori $s0 $s0 0b001101

For lui, the U-Type $rd field is unused and can be any value.

Multiplication

As in MIPS, the multiply instruction will store the upper bits of the product in $HI and the lower bits in $LO. Specifically, for RPIS, the upper 16 bits of the product will be stored in $HI and the lower 16 bits will be in $LO. mfhi and mflo can then be used in order to access the values of $HI and $LO, respectively.

Set Less Than

In RPIS, set less than is equivalent to slt in MIPS, where the values of $rs and $rd are interpreted as signed integers (you already implemented this in your ALU without any special handling).

Logisim Notes

If you are having trouble with Logisim, RESTART IT and RELOAD your circuit! Don't waste your time chasing a bug that is not your fault. However, if restarting doesn't solve the problem, it is more likely that the bug is a flaw in your project. Please post to Piazza about any crazy bugs that you find and we will investigate.

Things to Look Out For

Logisim's Combinational Analysis Feature

Logisim offers some functionality for automating circuit implementation given a truth table, or vice versa. Though not disallowed (enforcing such a requirement is impractical), use of this feature is discouraged. Remember that you will not be allowed to have a laptop running Logisim on the final.


Testing

For part 2, it is somewhat difficult to provide small unit tests such as the ones from part 1 since you are completing the full datapath. As such, the best approach would be to write short RPIS programs and exercise your datapath in different ways. To facilitate this, we have provided you with a rudimentary RPIS assembler that functions similarly to your project 2. To assemble a RPIS file, simply run the assembler with python and pass in your input file as follows:

vim test.s  # create your assembly file. Remember to only use the instructions provide in the ISA above
python assembler.py test.s # This will generate an output file named test.hex
python assembler.py test.s -v # Same as above, but also provides some verbose output on command line.
    

Note: the assembler has only been tested with python 2.7, so it may be easier to run it remotely off of the hive* servers if you haven't set up your python environments.

Once you have generated the machine code, you'll have to load it into the instruction memory unit in run.circ and begin execution. To do so, first open run.circ and locate the Instruction Memory Unit.

Click on the memory module and then, in the left sidebar, click on the "(Click to edit)" option next to "Contents". This will bring up a hex editor with the option to open a previously created hex file. This is where we load the file outputted by the assembler earlier.

Once you've loaded the machine code you can tick the clock manually and watch your CPU execute your program! You can double click on the CPU using the poke tool to take a look at how your datapath is behaving under the given input. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent MARS program for RPIS, so you will need to think through the behavior and execution of each instruction yourself.

Lastly, you may be wondering if you're implementation will rely on your ALU and RegFile from Project 3-1. You will be using your own implementations of the ALU and RegFile as you construct your datapath; however, for grading, we will test your CPU using both your versions of the ALU and RegFile as well as a staff version, and take the maximum score of the two.

Submission

There are two steps required to submit proj3-2. Failure to perform both steps will result in loss of credit:

  1. First, you must submit using the standard unix submit program on the instructional servers. This assumes that you followed the earlier instructions and did all of your work inside of your git repository. To submit, follow these instructions after logging into your -XX class account:

    cd ~/proj3-XX                             # Or where your shared git repo is
    submit proj3-2

    Once you type submit proj3-2, follow the prompts generated by the submission system. It will tell you when your submission has been successful and you can confirm this by looking at the output of glookup -t.


  2. Additionally, you must submit proj3-2 to your Bitbucket repository:

    cd ~/proj3-XXX                             # Or where your shared git repo is
    git add -u                           
    git commit -m "project 3-2 submission"       # The commit message doesn't have to match exactly.
    git tag "proj3-2-sub"                        # The tag MUST be "proj3-2-sub". Failure to do so will result in loss of credit.
    git push origin proj3-2-sub                  # This tells git to push the commit tagged proj3-2-sub

Resubmitting

If you need to re-submit, you can follow the same set of steps that you would if you were submitting for the first time, but you will need to use the -f flag to tag and push to Bitbucket:

# Do everything as above until you get to tagging
git tag -f "proj3-2-sub"
git push -f origin proj3-2-sub

Note that in general, force pushes should be used with caution. They will overwrite your remote repository with information from your local copy. As long as you have not damaged your local copy in any way, this will be fine.

Deliverables

cpu.circ

We will be using our own versions of the *-harness.circ and run.circ files, so you do not need to submit those. In addition, you should not depend on any changes you make to those files.

Grading

This project will be graded in large part by an autograder. If some of your tests fail, we will try to look to see if there is a simple wiring problem. If they can find one, they will give you the new score from the autograder minus a deduction based on the severity of the wiring problem. For this reason, neatness is a small part of your grade - please try to make your circuits neat and readable.