[libre-riscv-dev] SV Prefix questions

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Wed, Jun 26, 2019 at 6:27 AM Jacob Lifshay <programmerjake at gmail.com> wrote:

> Starting from the V extension spec:
> https://github.com/riscv/riscv-v-spec/blob/e014590220e7b95b1dfa3c0665277ae1550828c9/v-spec.adoc#vsetvlivsetvl-instructions

 "The vl setting rules are designed to be sufficiently strict to
preserve vl behavior across register spills and context swaps for AVL
≤ VLMAX, yet flexible enough to enable implementations to improve
vector lane utilization for AVL > VLMAX.

For example, this permits an implementation to set vl = ceil(AVL / 2)
for VLMAX < AVL < 2*VLMAX in order to evenly distribute work over the
last two iterations of a stripmine loop. Requirement 2 ensures that
the first stripmine iteration of reduction loops uses the largest
vector length of all iterations, even in the case of AVL < 2*VLMAX.
This allows software to avoid needing to explicitly calculate a
running maximum of vector lengths observed during a stripmined loop.
"

those are *implementation* details.  they're bleeding *implementation*
details - hard-coding the assumption that implementors will be doing
SIMD "Lanes" - into the *specification*.

that is not an appropriate thing to do, and we should not be following
their flawed approach.

we are *not* doing a "Lanes" (SIMD) specification.  SV sits on top of
the *scalar* register file, not on top of vector *lanes*.

l.