[libre-riscv-dev] pipeline sync issues

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Wed, Apr 10, 2019 at 9:06 AM Jacob Lifshay <programmerjake at gmail.com> wrote:

> no, it's all taken into account because succ.valid_out is not a flip-flop,
> it's a non-synchronous combination of pred.valid_in and the internal state,
> therefore it doesn't have to be listed as an input in the truth table. The
> truth table only needs to have the current state of all internal registers
> and all inputs from the outside listed as inputs in the truth table. The
> internal state consists of the buf_full signal (ignoring the data path),

 this confused me as well: buf_full (or its inverse) is stored in
p_o_ready.  therefore p_o_ready *is* buf_full (or, its inverse).
therefore, when calculating the truth table, whenever buf_full occurs,
replace it with ~p_o_ready.

 we can draw that conclusion from this:
  m.d.comb += self.p._o_ready.eq(~buf_full)

 if that was a "sync" it would be a different matter.  however, it's a
"comb", therefore p_o_ready *is* ~buf_full.  buf_full *is* ~p_o_ready.

 so on all occurrences of buf_full, we can substitute (respecting the
inversion) and eliminate buf_full.

 thus it is part of the synchronous state, and time (past-present)
does have to be taken into consideration.

 i'll add a table for UnbufferedPipeline2 (based directly on BreakReadyStage).

l.