In non-static contexts like class objects or stack frames, the use of
global trigger evaluation is not feasible. The concept of dynamic
triggers allows for trigger evaluation in such cases. These triggers are
simply local variables, and coroutines are themselves responsible for
evaluating them. They await the global dynamic trigger scheduler object,
which is responsible for resuming them during the trigger evaluation
step in the 'act' eval region. Once the trigger is set, they await the
dynamic trigger scheduler once again, and then get resumed during the
resumption step in the 'act' eval region.
Signed-off-by: Krzysztof Bieganski <kbieganski@antmicro.com>
`V3SchedTiming` currently assumes that if a fork still exists, it must
have statements within it (otherwise it would have been deleted by
`V3Timing`). However, in a case like this:
```
module t;
reg a;
initial fork a = 1; join
endmodule
```
the assignment in the fork is optimized out by `V3Dead` after
`V3Timing`. This leads to `V3SchedTiming` accessing fork's `stmtsp`
pointer, which at this point is null. This patch addresses that issue.
Signed-off-by: Krzysztof Bieganski <kbieganski@antmicro.com>
Before this change, some forked processes were being inlined in
`V3Timing` because they contained no `CAwait`s. This only works under
the assumption that no `CAwait`s will be added there later, which is not
true, as a function called by a forked process could be turned into a
coroutine later. The call would be wrapped in a new `CAwait`, but the
process itself would have already been inlined at this point.
This commit moves the inlining to `transformForks` in `V3SchedTiming`,
which is called at a point when all `CAwait`s are already in place.
Signed-off-by: Krzysztof Bieganski <kbieganski@antmicro.com>
Adds timing support to Verilator. It makes it possible to use delays,
event controls within processes (not just at the start), wait
statements, and forks.
Building a design with those constructs requires a compiler that
supports C++20 coroutines (GCC 10, Clang 5).
The basic idea is to have processes and tasks with delays/event controls
implemented as C++20 coroutines. This allows us to suspend and resume
them at any time.
There are five main runtime classes responsible for managing suspended
coroutines:
* `VlCoroutineHandle`, a wrapper over C++20's `std::coroutine_handle`
with move semantics and automatic cleanup.
* `VlDelayScheduler`, for coroutines suspended by delays. It resumes
them at a proper simulation time.
* `VlTriggerScheduler`, for coroutines suspended by event controls. It
resumes them if its corresponding trigger was set.
* `VlForkSync`, used for syncing `fork..join` and `fork..join_any`
blocks.
* `VlCoroutine`, the return type of all verilated coroutines. It allows
for suspending a stack of coroutines (normally, C++ coroutines are
stackless).
There is a new visitor in `V3Timing.cpp` which:
* scales delays according to the timescale,
* simplifies intra-assignment timing controls and net delays into
regular timing controls and assignments,
* simplifies wait statements into loops with event controls,
* marks processes and tasks with timing controls in them as
suspendable,
* creates delay, trigger scheduler, and fork sync variables,
* transforms timing controls and fork joins into C++ awaits
There are new functions in `V3SchedTiming.cpp` (used by `V3Sched.cpp`)
that integrate static scheduling with timing. This involves providing
external domains for variables, so that the necessary combinational
logic gets triggered after coroutine resumption, as well as statements
that need to be injected into the design eval function to perform this
resumption at the correct time.
There is also a function that transforms forked processes into separate
functions.
See the comments in `verilated_timing.h`, `verilated_timing.cpp`,
`V3Timing.cpp`, and `V3SchedTiming.cpp`, as well as the internals
documentation for more details.
Signed-off-by: Krzysztof Bieganski <kbieganski@antmicro.com>
