[PATCH v2] dt-bindings: riscv: deprecate riscv,isa

Palmer Dabbelt palmer at dabbelt.com
Thu Jun 22 20:25:35 CEST 2023


On Thu, 08 Jun 2023 09:54:05 PDT (-0700), Conor Dooley wrote:
> From: Conor Dooley <conor.dooley at microchip.com>
>
> intro
> =====
>
> When the RISC-V dt-bindings were accepted upstream in Linux, the base
> ISA etc had yet to be ratified. By the ratification of the base ISA,
> incompatible changes had snuck into the specifications - for example the
> Zicsr and Zifencei extensions were spun out of the base ISA.
>
> Fast forward to today, and the reason for this patch.
> Currently the riscv,isa dt property permits only a specific subset of
> the ISA string - in particular it excludes version numbering.
> With the current constraints, it is not possible to discern whether
> "rv64i" means that the hart supports the fence.i instruction, for
> example.
> Future systems may choose to implement their own instruction fencing,
> perhaps using a vendor extension, or they may not implement the optional
> counter extensions. Software needs a way to determine this.
>
> versioning schemes
> ==================
>
> "Use the extension versions that are described in the ISA manual" you
> may say, and it's not like this has not been considered.
> Firstly, software that parses the riscv,isa property at runtime will
> need to contain a lookup table of some sort that maps arbitrary versions
> to versions it understands. There is not a consistent application of
> version number applied to extensions, with a higgledy-piggledy
> collection of tags, "bare" and version documents awaiting the reader on
> the "recently ratified extensions" page:
> https://wiki.riscv.org/display/HOME/Recently+Ratified+Extensions
>
> 	As an aside, this is reflected in the patch too, since many
> 	extensions have yet to appear in a release of the ISA specs,
> 	and are defined by commits in their respective "working draft"
> 	repositories.
>
> Secondly, there is an issue of backwards compatibility, whereby allowing
> numbers in the ISA string, some parsers may be broken. This would
> require an additional property to be created to even use the versions in
> this manner.
>
> boolean properties
> ==================
>
> If a new property is needed, the whole approach may as well be looked at
> from the bottom up. A string with limited character choices etc is
> hardly the best approach for communicating extension information to
> software.
>
> Switching to using boolean properties, one per extension, allows us to
> define explicit meanings for the DT representation of each extension -
> rather than the current situation where different operating systems or
> other bits of software may impart different meanings to characters in
> the string. Clearly the best source of meanings is the specifications
> themselves, this just provides us the ability to choose at what point
> in time the meaning is set. If an extension changes incompatibility in
> the future, a new property will be required.
>
> Off-list, some of the RVI folks have committed to shoring up the wording
> in either the ISA specifications, the riscv-isa-manual or
> so that in the future, modifications to and additions or removals of
> features will require a new extension. Codifying that assertion
> somewhere would make it quite unlikely that compatibility would be
> broken, but we have the tools required to deal with it, if & when it
> crops up.
> It is in our collective interest, as consumers of extension meanings, to
> define a scheme that enforces compatibility.
>
> The use of boolean properties, rather than elements in a string, will
> also permit validation that the strings have a meaning, as well as
> potentially reject mutually exclusive combinations, or enforce
> dependencies between instructions. That would not be possible with the
> current dt-schema infrastructure for arbitrary strings, as we would need
> to add a riscv,isa parser to dt-validate! That's not implemented in this
> patch, but rather left as future work (for the brave, or the foolish).
>
> acpi
> ====
>
> The current ACPI ECR is based on having a string unfortunately, but
> ideally ACPI will move to another method, perhaps GUIDs, that give
> explicit meaning to extensions.
>
> parser simplicity
> =================
>
> Many systems that parse DT at runtime already implement an function that
> can check for the presence of boolean properties, rather than having to
> implement - although unfortunately for backwards compatibility with old
> dtbs, existing parsers may not be removable - which may greatly simplify
> dt parsing code. For example, in Linux, checking for an extension
> becomes as simple as:
> 	of_property_present(extension_node, "zicbom")
>
> vendor extensions
> =================
>
> Compared to riscv,isa, this proposed scheme promotes vendor extensions,
> oft touted as the strength of RISC-V, to first-class citizens.
> At present, extensions are defined as meaning what the RISC-V ISA
> specifications say they do. There is no realistic way of using that
> interface to provide cross-platform definitions for what vendor
> extensions mean. Vendor extensions may also have even less consistency
> than RVI do in terms of versioning, or no care about backwards
> compatibility.
> A boolean property allows us to assign explicit meanings on a per vendor
> extension basis, backed up by a description of their meanings.
>
> fin
> ===
>
> Create a new file to store the extension meanings, each of which are
> boolean children of a riscv,isa-extensions node and a new
> riscv,isa-base property to replace the aspect of riscv,isa that is
> not represented by booleans - the base ISA implemented by a hart.
> Originally I proposed properties in the cpu node, rather than as a child
> of the cpu node, but some concerns were raised about the size of the dtb
> for systems with dozens of cpus & dozens of extensions. Using a child
> node, and dropping the "riscv,isa-extension-" prefix saves the guts of
> 20 bytes per extension, per hart, and hopefully placates the size
> conscious.
>
> As a starting point, add properties for extensions currently used in
> Linux.
>
> Finally, mark riscv,isa as deprecated, as removing it is an ABI break.
>
> CC: Palmer Dabbelt <palmer at dabbelt.com>
> CC: Paul Walmsley <paul.walmsley at sifive.com>
> CC: Rob Herring <robh+dt at kernel.org>
> CC: Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzysztof.kozlowski+dt at linaro.org>
> CC: Alistair Francis <alistair.francis at wdc.com>
> CC: Andrew Jones <ajones at ventanamicro.com>
> CC: Anup Patel <apatel at ventanamicro.com>
> CC: Atish Patra <atishp at atishpatra.org>
> CC: Jessica Clarke <jrtc27 at jrtc27.com>
> CC: Rick Chen <rick at andestech.com>
> CC: Leo <ycliang at andestech.com>
> CC: Oleksii <oleksii.kurochko at gmail.com>
> CC: linux-riscv at lists.infradead.org
> CC: qemu-riscv at nongnu.org
> CC: u-boot at lists.denx.de
> CC: devicetree at vger.kernel.org
> CC: linux-kernel at vger.kernel.org
> Signed-off-by: Conor Dooley <conor.dooley at microchip.com>
> ---
> Changes in v2:
> - Use Sean's suggestion of a child node to calm fears of bloat
> - Fixup a rake of wording etc issues that Drew pointed out
>
> As a result of implementing Sean's suggestion, I believe I need to add
> riscv,isa-extensions as an exception to the rules preventing vendor
> properties being of object type, otherwise dt_binding_check is less than
> happy with me.
>
> I've tried to CC a few folks here that would care about this, but I am
> sure there are more. I'll go cross-post it to sw-dev, if it allows me to
> post there...
> ---
>  .../devicetree/bindings/riscv/cpus.yaml       |  57 ++--
>  .../devicetree/bindings/riscv/extensions.yaml | 278 ++++++++++++++++++
>  2 files changed, 313 insertions(+), 22 deletions(-)
>  create mode 100644 Documentation/devicetree/bindings/riscv/extensions.yaml
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/riscv/cpus.yaml b/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/riscv/cpus.yaml
> index 3d2934b15e80..1e4f67129f97 100644
> --- a/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/riscv/cpus.yaml
> +++ b/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/riscv/cpus.yaml
> @@ -23,6 +23,9 @@ description: |
>    two cores, each of which has two hyperthreads, could be described as
>    having four harts.
>
> +allOf:
> +  - $ref: extensions.yaml
> +
>  properties:
>    compatible:
>      oneOf:
> @@ -79,25 +82,6 @@ properties:
>      description:
>        The blocksize in bytes for the Zicboz cache operations.
>
> -  riscv,isa:
> -    description:
> -      Identifies the specific RISC-V instruction set architecture
> -      supported by the hart.  These are documented in the RISC-V
> -      User-Level ISA document, available from
> -      https://riscv.org/specifications/
> -
> -      Due to revisions of the ISA specification, some deviations
> -      have arisen over time.
> -      Notably, riscv,isa was defined prior to the creation of the
> -      Zicsr and Zifencei extensions and thus "i" implies
> -      "zicsr_zifencei".
> -
> -      While the isa strings in ISA specification are case
> -      insensitive, letters in the riscv,isa string must be all
> -      lowercase to simplify parsing.
> -    $ref: "/schemas/types.yaml#/definitions/string"
> -    pattern: ^rv(?:64|32)imaf?d?q?c?b?k?j?p?v?h?(?:[hsxz](?:[a-z])+)?(?:_[hsxz](?:[a-z])+)*$
> -
>    # RISC-V requires 'timebase-frequency' in /cpus, so disallow it here
>    timebase-frequency: false
>
> @@ -133,8 +117,17 @@ properties:
>        DMIPS/MHz, relative to highest capacity-dmips-mhz
>        in the system.
>
> +oneOf:
> +  - required:
> +      - riscv,isa
> +  - required:
> +      - riscv,isa-base
> +
> +dependencies:
> +  riscv,isa-base: [ "riscv,isa-extensions" ]
> +  riscv,isa-extensions: [ "riscv,isa-base" ]
> +
>  required:
> -  - riscv,isa
>    - interrupt-controller
>
>  additionalProperties: true
> @@ -177,8 +170,18 @@ examples:
>                  i-tlb-size = <32>;
>                  mmu-type = "riscv,sv39";
>                  reg = <1>;
> -                riscv,isa = "rv64imafdc";
>                  tlb-split;
> +                riscv,isa-base = "rv64i";
> +
> +                riscv,isa-extensions {
> +                  i;
> +                  m;
> +                  a;
> +                  f;
> +                  d;
> +                  c;
> +                };
> +
>                  cpu_intc1: interrupt-controller {
>                          #interrupt-cells = <1>;
>                          compatible = "riscv,cpu-intc";
> @@ -196,8 +199,18 @@ examples:
>                  device_type = "cpu";
>                  reg = <0>;
>                  compatible = "riscv";
> -                riscv,isa = "rv64imafdc";
>                  mmu-type = "riscv,sv48";
> +                riscv,isa-base = "rv64i";
> +
> +                riscv,isa-extensions {
> +                  i;
> +                  m;
> +                  a;
> +                  f;
> +                  d;
> +                  c;
> +                };
> +
>                  interrupt-controller {
>                          #interrupt-cells = <1>;
>                          interrupt-controller;
> diff --git a/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/riscv/extensions.yaml b/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/riscv/extensions.yaml
> new file mode 100644
> index 000000000000..7257f186832e
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/riscv/extensions.yaml
> @@ -0,0 +1,278 @@
> +# SPDX-License-Identifier: (GPL-2.0 OR MIT)
> +%YAML 1.2
> +---
> +$id: http://devicetree.org/schemas/riscv/extensions.yaml#
> +$schema: http://devicetree.org/meta-schemas/core.yaml#
> +
> +title: RISC-V ISA extensions
> +
> +maintainers:
> +  - Paul Walmsley <paul.walmsley at sifive.com>
> +  - Palmer Dabbelt <palmer at sifive.com>
> +  - Conor Dooley <conor at kernel.org>
> +
> +description: |
> +  RISC-V has a large number of extensions, some of which are "standard"
> +  extensions,   meaning they are ratified by RISC-V International, and others
> +  are "vendor" extensions.
> +  This document defines properties that indicate whether a hart supports a
> +  given extension.
> +
> +  Once a standard extension has been ratified, no changes in behaviour can be
> +  made without the creation of a new extension.
> +  The properties for standard extensions therefore map to their originally
> +  ratified states, with the exception of the I, Zicntr & Zihpm extensions.
> +  See the "i" property for more information.
> +
> +select:
> +  properties:
> +    compatible:
> +      contains:
> +        const: riscv
> +
> +properties:
> +  riscv,isa:
> +    description:
> +      Identifies the specific RISC-V instruction set architecture
> +      supported by the hart.  These are documented in the RISC-V
> +      User-Level ISA document, available from
> +      https://riscv.org/specifications/
> +
> +      Due to revisions of the ISA specification, some deviations
> +      have arisen over time.
> +      Notably, riscv,isa was defined prior to the creation of the
> +      Zicsr and Zifencei extensions and thus "i" implies
> +      "zicsr_zifencei".
> +
> +      While the isa strings in the ISA specification are case
> +      insensitive, letters in the riscv,isa string must be all
> +      lowercase to simplify parsing.
> +
> +      This property has been deprecated due to disparity between the
> +      extension at the time of its creation and ratification of the
> +      base ISA.
> +
> +    $ref: /schemas/types.yaml#/definitions/string
> +    pattern: ^rv(?:64|32)imaf?d?q?c?b?k?j?p?v?h?(?:[hsxz](?:[a-z])+)?(?:_[hsxz](?:[a-z])+)*$
> +    deprecated: true
> +
> +  riscv,isa-base:
> +    description:
> +      The base ISA implemented by this hart, as described by the 20191213
> +      version of the unprivileged ISA specification.
> +    enum:
> +      - rv32i
> +      - rv64i
> +
> +  riscv,isa-extensions:
> +    type: object
> +    description:
> +      This child of the cpu node contains boolean properties, indicating which
> +      ISA extensions are supported by the cpu.
> +    additionalProperties: false
> +    properties:
> +      # single letter extensions, in canonical order
> +
> +      i:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The base integer instruction set, as ratified in the 20191213 version
> +          of the unprivileged ISA specification, with the exception of counter
> +          access. Counter access was removed after the ratification of the
> +          20191213 version of the unprivileged specification and shunted into
> +          the Zicntr and Zihpm extensions.
> +
> +      m:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The standard M extension for integer multiplication and division, as
> +          ratified in the 20191213 version of the unprivileged ISA
> +          specification.
> +
> +      a:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The standard A extension for atomic instructions, as ratified in the
> +          20191213 version of the unprivileged ISA specification.
> +
> +      f:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The standard F extension for single-precision floating point, as
> +          ratified in the 20191213 version of the unprivileged ISA
> +          specification.
> +
> +      d:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The standard D extension for double-precision floating-point, as
> +          ratified in the 20191213 version of the unprivileged ISA
> +          specification.
> +
> +      q:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The standard Q extension for quad-precision floating-point, as
> +          ratified in the 20191213 version of the unprivileged ISA
> +          specification.
> +
> +      c:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The standard C extension for compressed instructions, as ratified in
> +          the 20191213 version of the unprivileged ISA specification.
> +
> +      v:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The standard V extension for vector operations, as ratified
> +          in-and-around commit 7a6c8ae ("Fix text that describes vfmv.v.f
> +          encoding") of the riscv-v-spec.
> +
> +      h:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The standard H extension for hypervisors as ratified in the 20191213
> +          version of the privileged ISA specification.
> +
> +      # multi-letter extensions, sorted alphanumerically
> +      smaia:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description: |
> +          The standard Smaia supervisor-level extension for the advanced
> +          interrupt architecture for machine-mode-visible csr and behavioural
> +          changes to interrupts as frozen at commit ccbddab ("Merge pull
> +          request #42 from riscv/jhauser-2023-RC4") of riscv-aia.
> +
> +      ssaia:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description: |
> +          The standard Ssaia supervisor-level extension for the advanced
> +          interrupt architecture for supervisor-mode-visible csr and behavioural
> +          changes to interrupts as frozen at commit ccbddab ("Merge pull request
> +          #42 from riscv/jhauser-2023-RC4") of riscv-aia.
> +
> +      sscofpmf:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description: |
> +          The standard Sscofpmf supervisor-level extension for count overflow
> +          and mode-based filtering as ratified at commit 01d1df0 ("Add ability
> +          to manually trigger workflow. (#2)") of riscv-count-overflow.
> +
> +      sstc:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The standard Sstc supervisor-level extension for time compare as
> +          ratified at commit 3f9ed34 ("Add ability to manually trigger workflow.
> +          (#2)") of riscv-time-compare.
> +
> +      svinval:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The standard Svinval supervisor-level extension for fine-grained
> +          address-translation cache invalidation as ratified in the 20191213
> +          version of the privileged ISA specification.
> +
> +      svnapot:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The standard Svnapot supervisor-level extensions for napot translation
> +          contiguity as ratified in the 20191213 version of the privileged ISA
> +          specification.
> +
> +      svpbmt:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The standard Svpbmt supervisor-level extensions for page-based memory
> +          types as ratified in the 20191213 version of the privileged ISA
> +          specification.
> +
> +      zba:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description: |
> +          The standard Zba bit-manipulation extension for address generation
> +          acceleration instructions as ratified at commit 6d33919 ("Merge pull
> +          request #158 from hirooih/clmul-fix-loop-end-condition") of
> +          riscv-bitmanip.
> +
> +      zbb:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description: |
> +          The standard Zbb bit-manipulation extension for basic bit-manipulation
> +          as ratified at commit 6d33919 ("Merge pull request #158 from
> +          hirooih/clmul-fix-loop-end-condition") of riscv-bitmanip.
> +
> +      zbc:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description: |
> +          The standard Zbc bit-manipulation extension for carry-less
> +          multiplication as ratified at commit 6d33919 ("Merge pull request #158
> +          from hirooih/clmul-fix-loop-end-condition") of riscv-bitmanip.
> +
> +      zbs:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description: |
> +          The standard Zbs bit-manipulation extension for single-bit
> +          instructions as ratified at commit 6d33919 ("Merge pull request #158
> +          from hirooih/clmul-fix-loop-end-condition") of riscv-bitmanip.
> +
> +      zicbom:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The standard Zicbom extension for base cache management operations as
> +          ratified in commit 3dd606f ("Create cmobase-v1.0.pdf") of riscv-CMOs.
> +
> +      zicbop:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The standard Zicbop extension for cache-block prefetch instructions as
> +          ratified in commit 3dd606f ("Create cmobase-v1.0.pdf") of riscv-CMOs.
> +
> +      zicboz:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The standard  Zicbomz extension for cache-block zeroing as ratified in
> +          commit 3dd606f ("Create cmobase-v1.0.pdf") of riscv-CMOs.
> +
> +      zicntr:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The standard Zicntr extension for base counters and timers, as
> +          ratified in the 20191213 version of the unprivileged ISA
> +          specification.
> +
> +      zicsr:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The standard Zicsr extension for control and status register
> +          instructions, as ratified in the 20191213 version of the unprivileged
> +          ISA specification.
> +
> +      zifencei:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The standard Zifencei extension for instruction-fetch fence, as
> +          ratified in the 20191213 version of the unprivileged ISA
> +          specification.
> +
> +      zihintpause:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description: |
> +          The standard Zihintpause extension for pause hints, as ratified in
> +          commit d8ab5c7 ("Zihintpause is ratified") of the riscv-isa-manual.
> +
> +      zihpm:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The standard Zihpm extension for hardware performance counters, as
> +          ratified in the 20191213 version of the unprivileged ISA
> +          specification.
> +
> +      ztso:
> +        type: boolean
> +        description:
> +          The standard Ztso extension for total store ordering, as ratified in
> +          commit 2e5236 ("Ztso is now ratified.") of the riscv-isa-manual.
> +
> +additionalProperties: true
> +...

Reviewed-by: Palmer Dabbelt <palmer at rivosinc.com>
Acked-by: Palmer Dabbelt <palmer at rivosinc.com>

I'm not wed to any particular encoding for the properties, IMO that's 
more of a decision for the DT folks.  IMO the important bit is to just 
get away from ISA strings and move towards some tightly-specified 
properties that indicate how the HW actually behaves.

Thanks for sorting all this out.


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