README

This repository, maintained by SiFive, Inc, makes it easy to get started developing software for the Freedom E RISC-V platform.

Contents

• RISC-V Software Toolchain
• RISC-V Debugging Toolchain
• Board Support Packages for FE310 and Development Kits
• A Few Example Programs

Setting up the SDK

First, clone this repository:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/sifive/freedom-e-sdk.git

To see Makefile options:

cd freedom-e-sdk
make help

Building Tools from Source

Ubuntu packages needed:

$ sudo apt-get install autoconf automake libmpc-dev libmpfr-dev libgmp-dev gawk bison flex texinfo libtool libusb-1.0-0-dev make g++ pkg-config libexpat1-dev zlib1g-dev  

Next, build the tools:

cd freedom-e-sdk
make tools [BOARD=freedom-e300-hifive1]

If your machine has enough resources, you can speed up the build process by adding -j n to make, where n is the number of processors of your build system.

Using Pre-Built Binary Tools

If you would like to avoid compiling the tools from source, they are available as pre-built binaries from

https://sifive.com/products/tools

For OpenOCD and/or RISC-V GNU Toolchain, download the .tar.gz for your platform, and unpack it to your desired location. Then, use the RISC_PATH and RISCV_OPENOCD_PATH variables when attempting to use the tools:

cp openocd-<date>-<platform>.tar.gz /my/desired/location/
cp riscv64-unknown-elf-gcc-<date>-<platform>.tar.gz /my/desired/location
cd /my/desired/location
tar -xvf openocd-<date>-<platform>.tar.gz
tar -xvf riscv64-unknown-elf-gcc-<date>-<platform>.tar.gz
export RISCV_OPENOCD_PATH=/my/desired/location/openocd
export RISCV_PATH=/my/desired/location/riscv64-unknown-elf-gcc-<date>-<version>

Updating your SDK

If you'd like to update your SDK to the latest version:

cd freedom-e-sdk
git pull origin master
git submodule update --init --recursive

If you would like to recompile the entire toolchain after performing the above:

make uninstall
make tools

Using the Tools

To compile a bare-metal RISC-V program:

cd freedom-e-sdk
make software [PROGRAM=demo_gpio] [BOARD=freedom-e300-hifive1]

Run make help for more commands.

Benchmarking

Dhrystone

After setting up the software and debug toolchains, you can build and execute everyone's favorite benchmark as follows:

• Compile the benchmark with the command make software PROGRAM=dhrystone.
• Run on the HiFive1 board with the command make upload PROGRAM=dhrystone. This will take a few minutes. Sample output is provided below.
• Compute DMIPS by dividing the Dhrystones per Second result by 1757, which was the VAX 11/780's performance. In the example below, 729927 / 1757 = 415 DMIPS.
• Compute DMIPS/MHz by dividing by the clock rate: in the example below, 415 / 260 = 1.60 DMIPS/MHz.

core freq at 259830579 Hz

Dhrystone Benchmark, Version 2.1 (Language: C)

<snip>

Microseconds for one run through Dhrystone: 1.3
Dhrystones per Second:                      729927.0

CoreMark

We cannot distribute the CoreMark benchmark, but following are instructions to download and run the benchmark on the HiFive1 board:

• Download CoreMark from EEMBC's web site and extract the archive from http://www.eembc.org/coremark/download.php.
• Copy the following files from the extracted archive into the software/coremark directory in this repository:
  • core_list_join.c
  • core_main.c
  • coremark.h
  • core_matrix.c
  • core_state.c
  • core_util.c
• Compile the benchmark with the command make software PROGRAM=coremark.
• Run on the HiFive1 board with the command make upload PROGRAM=coremark.
• Divide the reported Iterations/Sec by the reported core frequency in MHz to obtain a CoreMarks/MHz value.

For More Information

Documentation, Forums, and much more available at

dev.sifive.com