specs-hw

Hardware-related libraries and applications

Description

Coming soon!

Installing Dependencies

The framework uses a combination of QEMU and GBD to retrieve instruction traces. As of commit 05c821f2, the QEMU and GDB processes are launched via Java, and communicate via TPC on localhost:1234. In toder to support Microblaze, ARM, and RISC-V, the respective binutils and QEMU builds are required.

QEMU For MicroBlaze and ARM (aarch64)

We target implementations on Xilinx development boards (mostly for R&D and testing purposes), so we must rely on Xilinx's fork of QEMU, since the QEMU builds for MicroBlaze and ARM builds in this fork support additional machine types (e.g. microblaze-fdt, to support a baremetal device tree). To build the most recent version of QEMU for both targets, follow the next steps.

git clone https://github.com/Xilinx/qemu.git
git checkout xilinx-v2021.1

For Microblaze, configure with:

./configure --target-list="microblazeel-softmmu" --prefix=<install dir>
make
make install

For ARM (aarch64), configure with:

./configure --target-list="aarch64-softmmu" --prefix=<install dir>
make
make install

Add the install paths to your PATH. Both targets can be compiled at once and installed in the same install path.

QEMU For RISCV-V

For RISC-V we employ the latest official QEMU release. Since this is a different repo entirely from the Xilinx fork, use a different install path for this target.

./configure --target-list="riscv32-softmmu" --prefix=<install dir>
make 
make install

Compiling binutils and the cross-compilers for MicroBlaze, aarch64, and RISC-V

We currently rely on generating ELF files by cross-compilation for the architecture's we wish to target/explore. Generating the required binutils (especially objdump and gdb) for each target is lenghty. Some auxiliary resources about cross-compilation in general can be found here, here, and here.

For the build flow we follow, see this README for more details.

Generating the DTBs for MicroBlaze Baremetal Runs

The repository already has the DTBs that QEMU (qemu-system-microblazeel) requires to execute, but here is how we generated them: we created an example Vivado 2021.1 project for the ZCU102 board, instantiated only a MicroBlaze with block rams and necessary components. Then we exported the XSA (hardware description file) via File->Export->Export Hardware. (The XSA file for the MicroBlaze is also included in the repo.) Then, we ran xsct and performed the following commands:

hsi open_hw_design mb_baremetal.xsa
hsi set_repo_path <path to device-tree-xnlx>
hsi create_sw_design device-tree -os device_tree -proc microblaze_0
hsi generate_target -dir .

This generates the a pl.dtsi file and a system-top.dts file. The system-top.dts file has a SYNTAX ERROR. The "#include" line should be "/include/". Change that. Then run:

dtc -I dts -O dtb -o system.dtb system-top.dts

The resulting DTB file is passed to qemu-system-microblazeel along with the kernel to execute and other options.

All the ELF files for the MicroBlaze that are bundled with the repo were compiled for this hardware description.

Publications

• N. Paulino, J. C. Ferreira, "A Binary Translation Framework for Automated Hardware Generation", Demo at the 2020 International Design Automation and Test in Europe Conference (DATE), 2020

• N. Paulino, J. C. Ferreira, J. Bispo and J. M. P. Cardoso, "Executing ARMv8 Loop Traces on Reconfigurable Accelerator via Binary Translation Framework", 2020 30th International Conference on Field-Programmable Logic and Applications (FPL), Gothenburg, Sweden, 2020, pp. 367-367, doi: 10.1109/FPL50879.2020.00072.

• N. Paulino, J. Bispo, J. C. Ferreira and J. M. P. Cardoso, "A Binary Translation Framework for Automated Hardware Generation," in IEEE Micro, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 15-23, 1 July-Aug. 2021, doi: 10.1109/MM.2021.3088670.

How to Cite

@misc{specshw,
  author        = {Paulino, Nuno and Bispo, João},
  year          = "2020",
  title         = "Hardware-Related Libraries and Applications",
  url           = "https://github.com/specs-feup/specs-hw"
}

Authors

• Nuno Paulino - Creator and developer - ResearchGate

• João Bispo - Developer - ResearchGate