Open Collections

White, Caroline

University of British Columbia

The open-source RISC-V Vector extension (RVV), whose specification was frozen in 2021, comprises over 400 instructions, with four integer and two floating-point data types. Its purpose is to accelerate applications in high-performance computing. Since it is the largest optional extension to the RISC-V ecosystem, it is prudent to assess the implementation cost of these instructions with respect to their value add, particularly in cost-sensitive embedded and domain-specific applications. Some instructions are never used by certain applications, while others create unique and potentially costly hardware requirements. They can instead be replaced by simpler instruction sequences. We propose RVV-Lite, a partitioning of RVV. This partitioning allows users to deploy a smaller implementation with a predefined subset of the instructions, which is often needed in embedded or domain-specific applications with limited area or power. The rationale behind the instruction groupings is explained, and implementation results are shown to help make informed choices about the cost of these incremental implementations. To simplify software management, we suggest reducing the number of possible configurations by subdividing primary instructions into 7 layers, while presenting 5 orthogonal extensions that can be added at any point. Instructions excluded from the primary and orthogonal instruction subsets are placed into a final layer of instructions, bridging the gap between RVV-Lite and RVV 1.0. With all layers and options, RVV-Lite consists of 280 instructions, resulting in the exclusion of 127 instructions from the Zve* embedded options proposed by the RVV specification. To demonstrate efficacy of this subset, we present cycle counts for common benchmarks and compare these, along with area and timing results, to other RISC-V Vector engines.

Text

2023-04-18

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/84231

Electrical and Computer Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/