Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

The University of Texas at Austin

EE 360N, Fall 2005
Lab Assignment 6
Due: December 9, 2005, 5:00 pm
Yale N. Patt, Instructor
Aater Suleman, Linda Bigelow, Jose Joao, Veynu Narasiman, TAs

Introduction

For this assignment, you will write a simulator for the pipelined LC-3b. The simulator will take two input files:

  1. A file entitled ucode which holds the control store that is located in the DE stage of the pipeline.
  2. A file entitled isaprogram holding an assembled LC-3b program.

The simulator will execute the input LC-3b program using the control store and the code you write inside the simulator functions to direct the simulation of the datapath and memory components of the LC-3b.

Note: The file isaprogram is the output you generated in Lab Assignment 1. This file should consist of 4 hex characters per line. Each line of 4 hex characters should be prefixed with '0x'. For example, the instruction NOT R1, R6 would have been assembled to 1001001110111111. This instruction would be represented in the isaprogram file as 0x93BF. The file ucode is an ASCII file that consists of 64 rows and 23 columns of zeros and ones.

Similar to the simulator you used in Lab 3, the simulator for this lab is partitioned into two main sections, the shell, which allows a user to control the simulator, and the simulation routines, which carry out the simulation.

The Shell

The purpose of the shell is to provide the user with commands to control the execution of the simulator. In order to extract information from the simulator, a file named dumpsim will be created to hold information requested from the simulator. The shell supports the following commands:

  1. go - simulate the program until a HALT instruction is executed.
  2. run <n> - simulate the execution of the machine for n cycles
  3. mdump <low> <high> - dump the contents of memory, from location low to location high, to the screen and the dump file
  4. rdump - dump the current cycle count, the contents of R0-R7, PC, condition codes to the screen and the dump file.
  5. idump - dump the current cycle count, the contents of R0-R7, PC, condition codes, and the state of the pipeline latches to the screen and the dump file. This function also dumps the values of stall signals.
  6. ? - print out a list of all shell commands.
  7. quit - quit the shell

Do not change any of the code related to the shell. We will be using these functions to grade your program and our grading script expects the output format provided by these functions.

The Simulation Routines

The simulator simulates one processor cycle via the cycle() function. This function calls the following functions, each of which corresponds to one of the stages in the pipeline:

  1. FETCH_stage();
  2. DE_stage();
  3. AGEX_stage();
  4. MEM_stage();
  5. SR_stage();

The SR_stage() function has been written for you to get you started. Your job is to write the remaining four functions. Note: For each stage, your code must fully implement the structures in that stage of the pipeline. Refer to the description of the pipeline, the figures of the pipeline stages, and the list of control signals to figure out what to implement in each pipeline stage.

The simulator code provided contains two structures that hold the state of the pipeline latches: PS and NEW_PS. PS contains the state of the pipeline latches during the current clock cycle. NEW_PS contains the new values of the pipeline latches that will be latched at the end of the current clock cycle. At the end of each cycle, NEW_PS is assigned to PS (PS = NEW_PS) to simulate the latching of data values into the pipeline registers. You need to make use of these structures while writing the simulation routines. When you need to read a value from a pipeline latch, you need to read it from the PS structure. When you need to update the value in a pipeline latch, you should update it in the NEW_PS structure. In other words, the PS structure should always be used in the right-hand side of an assignment statement, and the NEW_PS structure should always be used on the left-hand side of an assignment statement. Please carefully examine the code related to these two structures as you have to use them in the code you write.

We have also provided you with interfaces to the instruction and data caches: icache_access and dcache_access functions. You must use these functions to perform accesses to the I-Cache and the D-Cache.

What To Do

First, read and understand the documentation for the pipelined version of LC-3b you are going to implement. Download this documentation from the following links

lab6_documentation.pdf

Your job is to implement the pipelined LC-3b microarchitecture exactly as it is described in the above documentation. Some of the logic blocks in the pipeline are left for you to implement. It is advisable that you design these logic blocks on paper before you start writing the simulator code.

The shell has been written for you. From your ECE LRC account, copy the following file to your work directory:

lc3bsim6.c

At present, the shell reads in the control store and input program and initializes the machine. It is your responsibility to write the correct control store file and to augment the shell with the simulation routines that simulate the activity of the pipelined LC-3b. In particular, you are to write the code to perform the activities of the first four pipeline stages as described above.

Add your code to the end of the shell code. Do not modify the shell code.

The accuracy of your simulator is your main priority. It is suggested that you start out by writing a one instruction program and simulating the execution of this program cycle by cycle using the idump command to verify that the instruction propagates correctly through the pipeline. We suggest that you start out by making sure a simple instruction, like an ADD, flows correctly through the pipeline. Then you can move on to more complicated instructions like loads and branches. Try instructions one by one to make sure each works as it is supposed to. After you get the memory and control instructions working correctly, you can try more complicated programs that contain dependencies and test whether or not your pipeline stalls correctly.

You are not responsible for implementing the RTI instruction. You are also not required to support exception/interrupt handling, although you are encouraged to think about the issues related to the handling of exceptions and interrupts on a pipelined microarchitecture.

Because we will be evaluating your code in Unix, you must be sure your code compiles on linux01.ece.utexas.edu using gcc with the -ansi flag and runs correctly. This means that you need to write your code in C such that it conforms to the ANSI C standard. If the value of a control signal is a don't care, you should set that signal to 0. We will be checking the state of the internal pipeline latches and architectural state when testing your simulator. To receive full credit, the values stored in these latches by your simulator should exactly match the values stored in these latches by a correct simulator.

What To Turn In

Please submit your lab assignment electronically. You will submit the following:

  1. lc3bsim6.c: Adequately documented source code of your simulator.
  2. ucode6: Your microcode file.
  3. dumpsim: The cycle-by-cycle results (for cycles 1-50) of executing the LC-3b assembly program that you wrote and assembled for Lab Assignment 1. You can obtain this by simulating the execution of the Lab Assignment 1 program and performing an idump after each cycle.