Out-of-Order OpenRISC2 semesters project

Semester A: Implementation of OpenRISC on XUPV5 board

Midterm PresentationBy: Vova Menis-Lurie Sonia GershkovichAdvisor: Mony Orbach

Spring Semester 2012

Content:

1.Project Overviewa. Background and the challengeb. Goals

2. Specificationsa. Working Environmentb. OpenRISC 1200

3. Our System:a. Block Diagramb. Implemented Designc. Simulation

4. Workflow5. Timetable – Gantt Chart

Project Overview Background

• OpenRISC is an OpenCores community project for developing RISC

architectures

• The only architecture till now: OpenRISC 1000

• Configurable implementation OpenRISC 1200

Our challenge is to configure the convenient architecture

implementation for XUP5 board, and create the

environment to ensure proper work and testability of the

system.

Project Overview Project Goals

Primary Goal:

• Implementation of Out-of-Order execution engine on the base of

OpenRISC architecture

Primary Goal – semester A:

• Creating a complete system-on-a-chip based OpenRISC, on XUP5

board, as a platform for further work, including:• Choosing Configuration for the CPU

• Simulation and Synthesis

• Implementation

• Debugging

• Testing the system

Project Overview Our Goals• Understanding of the fundamentals of computer architecture

• Acquiring computer designer’s skills, including experience in CPU

design, computer organization , hardware implementation and

debugging.

• Learning and practicing Verilog HDL (OpenRISC implementation

language)

Specifications of Working Environment Hardware – XUPV5 board

*Xilinx Virtex-5 XC5VLX110T FPGA (total Memory 2MB)

*Two Flash PROMs (32 MB each) *64-bit wide DDR2 DIMM

*On-board 32-bit ZBT SRAM )9MB)*Intel P30 Strata Flash

*Compact Flash controller

*10/100/1000 tri-speed Ethernet PHY *USB host and peripheral controllers

*Many I/O devices and ports

• Project Management

- PlanAhead (ISE)

• Simulation

- Icarus + or1ksim (requires Unix OS/CygWin)

• Synthesis

- XST(ISE)

• Debugging:

- long hours

Specifications of Working Environment Software

The OpenRISC 1200

The OpenRISC 1200

Simulation:Text to UART

Interrupt:Tx=ascii[x] -> Rx=ascii[x+1]

Simulation:Text to UART

Workflow:1. Choosing the configuration: what optional/configurable parts we will include.

2. Complete system compilation, including CPU and buses and other parts according to section 1.

3. Simulation and synthesis, pin-assignments.

4. Burning the system to the chip and basic debugging(here the work begins:).

5. Choosing a way to test the system, for example creating simple C program and executable file to be run on the OR1200 .

Achievements:

• Creating a complete system-on-a-chip based OpenRISC, on XUP5 board.

• Understanding of the fundamentals of computer architecture

• Learning and practicing Verilog HDL (OpenRISC implementation language)

• Acquiring computer designer’s skills, including experience in CPU design,

computer organization, hardware implementation and debugging.

• Learning the architecture an existing implementation of OpenRISC 1000

Challenges:

There were a number of challenges we had to deal with during our work

• Absence of documentation for the existing based Open RISC implementations.

• Requirement of using number of different work environments, that are not compatible to each other

• Significant challenge was an understanding of SoC’s software flow and a connection between Hardware and Software.

Conclusions:There are some possible improvements and new features that may be implemented in the future:

• Building more efficient system software loader, for example by using jtag bridge or by adding bootloader to SoC .

• Adding addition modules can be considered, for example usb, ethernet e.t.c.

• New Linus kernel supports OR1000 ISA so it’s possible to run Linux OS on this system. It will open a wide range of possibilities to actual use of this system.

• Platform of this project can be used for a multi-core systems, by adding additional openrisc cores to the system and building system scheduler for tasks.

• For future development of this project, allocation of computer with UNIX OS with full license for XILINX tool should be considered by the lab’s staff.

Thank you!