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[ANNOUNCE] YARDstick - custom processor development toolset

ANNOUNCE: YARDstick - custom processor development toolset

Dear friends,

I am very pleased and proud to announce YARDstick:

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a custom processor development toolset with an impressive list of features.

YARDstick is a novel design automation tool for custom processor development flows that focuces on the hard part: generating and evaluating application- specific hardware extensions. YARDstick is a powerful building block for ASIP development, since it integrates application analysis, ultra- fast algorithms for custom instruction generation and selection with user-defined compiler intermediate representations. As of September

2007, YARDstick integrates retargetable compiler features for the targeted IRs/architectures. Remarkable features of YARDstick are the following:

- retargetable to used-defined IRs by machine description.

- can be targeted to low-level compiler IRs, assembly-level representations of virtual machines, or assembly code for existing processors.

- fully parameterized custom instruction generation and selection engine.

- lightning-fast code selector for multiple-input multiple-output patterns based on graph matching. It is known that the code selector scales very well with the instruction node count of basic block data-dependence graphs (successfully tested with custom instruction patterns of more than 30 nodes).

- virtual register assignment for virtual machine targets.

- an extensive set of backends including assembly code emitter, C backend, visualization backends for Graphviz and VCG (or aiSee), an XML format amenable to graph rewriting and others.

YARDstick comes along with a cross-platform GUI written in Tcl/Tk 8.5.

The ultimate goal of YARDstick is to liberate the designer's development infrastructure from compiler and simulator idiosyncrasies. With YARDstick, the ASIP designer is empowered with the freedom of specifying the target architecture of choice and adding new implementations of analyses and custom instruction generation/selection methods.

At this moment, YARDstick is being heavily used for developing a new processor architecture of mine with many never-being-seen features, mostly aiming FPGAs. Status update report on the processor architecture should be expected near late October 2007.

Typically, 2x to 15x speedups for benchmark applications (ANSI C optimized source code) can be fully automatically obtained by using YARDstick depending on the target architecture. Speedups are evaluated against a typical scalar RISC architecture.

Detailed feature list:

  1. Analysis engines generating both static and dynamic statistics: - Data types - Operation-level statistics - Basic block statistics (ranking) - Performance estimations with/without custom instructions.
  2. Generation of CDFGs (Control-Data Flow Graphs).
  3. Backend engines: - ANSI C - dot (Graphviz) - VCG (GDL, aiSee) - XML (GGX for the AGG graph rewriting tool) - Retargetable assembly emitter for entire translation units (single files with multiple functions/procedures). - CDFG formats for various RTL synthesis tools.
  4. Custom instruction engines: - Full-parameterized MIMO custom instruction generation algorithm. Features: * Fast heuristic !!! * Configurable number of inputs * Configurable number of outputs * List of forbidden nodes * Node sorting strategies (3 different strategies!) * Transformation rule library for applying CFG transformation strategies
  5. Custom instruction selection: - Based on priority metrics (2 choices at the moment).
  6. Graph (and graph-subgraph) isomorphism features for eliminating redundant patterns. Multiple algorithms supported.
  7. Visualization of custom instructions, basic blocks, control-flow graphs and control-data flow graphs (basic block nodes expanded to their constituent instructions).
  8. Basic retargetable compiler features (alpha state): - Code selector for MIMO instructions (tested with large cases). - Virtual register assignment (allocation for a VM). - Hard register allocator in the works.
  9. Miscellaneous features: - single constant multiplication optimizer - elimination of false data-dependences in assembly-level CDFGs. - beautification options for visualization - interfacing (co-operation) with external tools such as peephole optimizers, profilers, code generators etc. - features related to the custom processor architecture (not to be disclosed yet)

Here is a list of application benchmarks that have been tested with YARDstick (compiler features not fully tested): - ADPCM encoder and decoder (typically: 4x speedup) - Video processing kernels: full-search block-matching motion estimation, logarithmic search motion estimation, motion compensation - Image processing kernels: steganography (hide/uncover), edge detection, matrix multiplication - Cryptographic kernels: crc32, rc5, raiden (7x speedup, 12x for unrolled version)

At the YARDstick homepage:

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you can find some additional material:

- 2-page brochure - 2-page abstract for the DATE'07 University Booth - a more extended presentation on YARDstick

The above material refers to the status of April 2007.

Expected enhancements to YARDstick in the near future: - linear-scan and integer-linear programming based register allocators - bitwidth analysis - CDFG->VHDL generation of custom instruction hardware - algorithm implementation for CDFG pipelining

Interested parties are welcome to contact me for details on how to get access to a demo version of the YARDstick toolset.

Kind regards

Nikolaos Kavvadias Computer Architecture Specialist - Compiler Developer Ph.D. candidate M.Sc. Eletronics Engineering B.Sc. Physics

You may contact me at: Nikolaos Kavvadias

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Reply to
Uncle Noah
Loading thread data ...

[chest thumping snipped]

FTFP:

Downloads

  1. A 2-page abstract describing YARDstick
  2. Short presentation of YARDstick
  3. A 2-page brochure on YARDstick
  4. In the near future, YARDstick binaries will be made available for download!
Reply to
JeffM

Hey JeffM

YARDstick is real and is working. However, i'm in the process of taking care of the legalese for the whole thing.

But why do you believe that is vapor? Can't you believe that it is the work of a single man, (2.5 man/years of on-and-off work) measuring about 25Klines of C, C++ and Tcl/Tk code?

Do you use Graphviz or VCG or are you just a bozzo, that is not aware of the tools?

Check out a custom instruction from an edge detection filter.

VCG dump:

graph: { title: "main_9"

x: 30 y: 30 height: 380 width: 560 xspace: 20 yspace: 30 display_edge_labels: yes layoutalgorithm: minbackward port_sharing: no node.borderwidth: 3 node.color: white node.textcolor: black node.bordercolor: black edge.color: black

node: { title:"0" shape: ellipse label:" ior" color:yellow } node: { title:"1" shape: ellipse label:" sl" color:yellow } node: { title:"2" shape: ellipse label:" abs" color:yellow } node: { title:"3" shape: ellipse label:" sub" color:yellow } node: { title:"4" shape: ellipse label:" sl" color:yellow } node: { title:"5" shape: ellipse label:" abs" color:yellow } node: { title:"6" shape: ellipse label:" sub" color:yellow } node: { title:"7" shape: ellipse label:" ldc" color:yellow } node: { title:"8" shape: rhomb label:" 1" color:magenta } edge: {sourcename:"8" targetname:"7"} node: { title:"9" shape: triangle label:" vr234.s32" color:cyan } edge: {sourcename:"0" targetname:"9"} node: { title:"10" shape: triangle label:" vr235.s32" color:cyan } edge: {sourcename:"7" targetname:"10"} node: { title:"11" shape: box label:" vr60.s32" color:green } edge: {sourcename:"11" targetname:"1"} node: { title:"12" shape: box label:" vr207.s32" color:green } edge: {sourcename:"12" targetname:"3"} node: { title:"13" shape: box label:" vr210.s32" color:green } edge: {sourcename:"13" targetname:"3"} edge: {sourcename:"11" targetname:"4"} edge: {sourcename:"12" targetname:"6"} node: { title:"14" shape: box label:" vr220.s32" color:green } edge: {sourcename:"14" targetname:"6"}

edge: {sourcename:"3" targetname:"2" label:"vr228.s32" } edge: {sourcename:"2" targetname:"1" label:"vr229.s32" } edge: {sourcename:"1" targetname:"0" label:"vr230.s32" } edge: {sourcename:"6" targetname:"5" label:"vr231.s32" } edge: {sourcename:"5" targetname:"4" label:"vr232.s32" } edge: {sourcename:"4" targetname:"0" label:"vr233.s32" }

}

Graphviz dump: digraph main_9 {

node [fontname=Courier,fontsize=14,style=filled]; 0 [shape=ellipse,label="ior",fillcolor=yellow] 1 [shape=ellipse,label="sl",fillcolor=yellow] 2 [shape=ellipse,label="abs",fillcolor=yellow] 3 [shape=ellipse,label="sub",fillcolor=yellow] 4 [shape=ellipse,label="sl",fillcolor=yellow] 5 [shape=ellipse,label="abs",fillcolor=yellow] 6 [shape=ellipse,label="sub",fillcolor=yellow] 7 [shape=ellipse,label="ldc",fillcolor=yellow] 8 [shape=diamond,label="1",fillcolor=magenta] 8 -> 7; 9 [shape=triangle,label="vr234.s32",fillcolor=cyan] 0 -> 9; 10 [shape=triangle,label="vr235.s32",fillcolor=cyan] 7 -> 10; 11 [shape=invtriangle,label="vr60.s32",fillcolor=green] 11 -> 1; 12 [shape=invtriangle,label="vr207.s32",fillcolor=green] 12 -> 3; 13 [shape=invtriangle,label="vr210.s32",fillcolor=green] 13 -> 3; 11 -> 4; 12 -> 6; 14 [shape=invtriangle,label="vr220.s32",fillcolor=green] 14 -> 6;

3 -> 2 [label="vr228.s32"]; 2 -> 1 [label="vr229.s32"]; 1 -> 0 [label="vr230.s32"]; 6 -> 5 [label="vr231.s32"]; 5 -> 4 [label="vr232.s32"]; 4 -> 0 [label="vr233.s32"]; }

Just copy-paste the stuff and use Graphviz (dot) and VCG to view them.

Can you do that?

Nikolaos Kavvadias Computer Architecture Specialist and Compiler Developer Ph.D. candidate

Reply to
Uncle Noah

Well man.

I'm just polishing YARDstick and taking care of the legalese. It is a major project of mine that measures up to ~25klines of code for now, not to mention the external BSD-licensed libraries it uses.

I can't understand your attitude though. A great automation is not vapor, but you are.

YARDstick was presented at DATE'07 this April. Some guys from the MORPHEUS project as well as a senior researcher from Synopsys had a good look on the tool and its Tcl/Tk 8.5.a5 GUI.

Maybe you should ask MORPHEUS people, they have witnessed it.

Here follows part of my answer to the other post.

Check out a custom instruction from an edge detection filter. It has been auto-identified and auto-dumped.

VCG dump:

graph: { title: "main_9"

x: 30 y: 30 height: 380 width: 560 xspace: 20 yspace: 30 display_edge_labels: yes layoutalgorithm: minbackward port_sharing: no node.borderwidth: 3 node.color: white node.textcolor: black node.bordercolor: black edge.color: black

node: { title:"0" shape: ellipse label:" ior" color:yellow } node: { title:"1" shape: ellipse label:" sl" color:yellow } node: { title:"2" shape: ellipse label:" abs" color:yellow } node: { title:"3" shape: ellipse label:" sub" color:yellow } node: { title:"4" shape: ellipse label:" sl" color:yellow } node: { title:"5" shape: ellipse label:" abs" color:yellow } node: { title:"6" shape: ellipse label:" sub" color:yellow } node: { title:"7" shape: ellipse label:" ldc" color:yellow } node: { title:"8" shape: rhomb label:" 1" color:magenta } edge: {sourcename:"8" targetname:"7"} node: { title:"9" shape: triangle label:" vr234.s32" color:cyan } edge: {sourcename:"0" targetname:"9"} node: { title:"10" shape: triangle label:" vr235.s32" color:cyan } edge: {sourcename:"7" targetname:"10"} node: { title:"11" shape: box label:" vr60.s32" color:green } edge: {sourcename:"11" targetname:"1"} node: { title:"12" shape: box label:" vr207.s32" color:green } edge: {sourcename:"12" targetname:"3"} node: { title:"13" shape: box label:" vr210.s32" color:green } edge: {sourcename:"13" targetname:"3"} edge: {sourcename:"11" targetname:"4"} edge: {sourcename:"12" targetname:"6"} node: { title:"14" shape: box label:" vr220.s32" color:green } edge: {sourcename:"14" targetname:"6"}

edge: {sourcename:"3" targetname:"2" label:"vr228.s32" } edge: {sourcename:"2" targetname:"1" label:"vr229.s32" } edge: {sourcename:"1" targetname:"0" label:"vr230.s32" } edge: {sourcename:"6" targetname:"5" label:"vr231.s32" } edge: {sourcename:"5" targetname:"4" label:"vr232.s32" } edge: {sourcename:"4" targetname:"0" label:"vr233.s32" }

}

Graphviz dump: digraph main_9 {

node [fontname=Courier,fontsize=14,style=filled]; 0 [shape=ellipse,label="ior",fillcolor=yellow] 1 [shape=ellipse,label="sl",fillcolor=yellow] 2 [shape=ellipse,label="abs",fillcolor=yellow] 3 [shape=ellipse,label="sub",fillcolor=yellow] 4 [shape=ellipse,label="sl",fillcolor=yellow] 5 [shape=ellipse,label="abs",fillcolor=yellow] 6 [shape=ellipse,label="sub",fillcolor=yellow] 7 [shape=ellipse,label="ldc",fillcolor=yellow] 8 [shape=diamond,label="1",fillcolor=magenta] 8 -> 7; 9 [shape=triangle,label="vr234.s32",fillcolor=cyan] 0 -> 9; 10 [shape=triangle,label="vr235.s32",fillcolor=cyan] 7 -> 10; 11 [shape=invtriangle,label="vr60.s32",fillcolor=green] 11 -> 1; 12 [shape=invtriangle,label="vr207.s32",fillcolor=green] 12 -> 3; 13 [shape=invtriangle,label="vr210.s32",fillcolor=green] 13 -> 3; 11 -> 4; 12 -> 6; 14 [shape=invtriangle,label="vr220.s32",fillcolor=green] 14 -> 6;

3 -> 2 [label="vr228.s32"]; 2 -> 1 [label="vr229.s32"]; 1 -> 0 [label="vr230.s32"]; 6 -> 5 [label="vr231.s32"]; 5 -> 4 [label="vr232.s32"]; 4 -> 0 [label="vr233.s32"]; }

Just copy-paste the stuff and use Graphviz (dot) and VCG to view them.

Nikolaos Kavvadias Computer Architecture Specialist and Compiler Developer Ph.D. candidate

Reply to
Uncle Noah

Sorry, forgot the ANSI C simulation code for the custom instruction.

Here it is:

void ci_9( int *d0 ,int *d1 ,int s0 ,int s1 ,int s2 ,int s3 ) { int vr228_s32; int vr229_s32; int vr230_s32; int vr231_s32; int vr232_s32; int vr233_s32; *d1 = 1; vr231_s32 = s1-s3; vr232_s32 = ((vr231_s32 < 0) ? -vr231_s32 : vr231_s32); vr233_s32 = s0

Reply to
Uncle Noah

He didn't say it wasn't doable, or inconceivable; he said he couldn't download it. If he got the link wrong, perhaps you should give him another link.

Reply to
Evan Lavelle

Hi Evan

thanks for clearing this up.

Here is the whole story: i would release a binary version of YARDstick only under the following circumstances: ... if i had a steady job. I'm 30 and looking for a decent engineering/ research job in Greece or the EU. It seems here that opportunities are quite limited for real state-of-the-art research, developing prototypes and pushing some good stuff into the market. Let's say that within the university that i had contract from period to period (with extremely low payment) and got wildly exploited for it. For example, i have developed really nice FPGA lab exercises (a messaging machine and an embedded processor running edge detection) for $0 payment. I have supervised over 15 BSc and Msc theses as well as supervised zillions of exam hours for $0 payment. ENOUGH!

Since i have no job, and no insurance, i will release nothing to noone. Zero, nothing, nil, zip.

If there appears to be some real interest, from real people (and not let's say academic bozzos), i will setup a CGI-driven site so it could be accessed online. And this will only be for a small period of time, just to so what it can do to the interested parties.

I have particularly used my code with BSD-licensed stuff so i will not have to release anything.

So to sum up, things changed since last April. I thought i would get a job within a university facility (a research staff position).

Kind regards Nikolaos Kavvadias

Reply to
Uncle Noah

Hey JeffM

i don't see you responding, about the uploaded some sample auto- generated files for a custom instruction. What is your opinion?

You made a hasty choice to rename the thread. Shame on you and the other academic bozzos out there. All you people teach youngsters (i'm over 30, i'm no toy-boy) holy pieces of crap like top-down programming, UML-powered or not.

And is another thing to teach science matters, all fine by me, and wildly another to take a certain rotten point of view on applying certain processes for problem understanding and solving.

You waste precious taxpayers money! Do parents know what are young wanna-be engineers taught in their courses?

Are they taught scientific matters or waste hours of their lifes on what their prof. is good at (since his Ph.D. days?)

I have two crappy degrees on Physics, and Applications of Physics in Electronics (the second with honors). They are junk, as i work on what i have taught myself since 2000.

Shame on you people! Have you ever coded a piece of working software? Anything beyond the first couple of thousand lines?

BTW: What is your opinion on the auto-generated files? (having a few good laughs with academic bozzos, playing hardball in courses).

Nikolaos Kavvadias

Reply to
Uncle Noah

I'm not really following this thread. Are you announcing that something is available, or that something is not available?

Do you know Werty?

--
Regards,
Richard.

+ http://www.FreeRTOS.org
13 official architecture ports, 1000 downloads per week.

+ http://www.SafeRTOS.com
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Reply to
FreeRTOS.org

WOW! Not bitter at all! Um I think someone needs to take a little nappy.

I think you need to work on your sales pitch a little Nikolaos. I was going to look at what you've done but you seem to belittle everything I've done in my career as well as most of my academic friends. Don't think I want to look at your little project at all now.

Shannon

Reply to
Shannon

Hi Shannon

it sounds that i'm bitter against all academic people around, but is only a tiny fraction of them that i'm mad at.

however it seems that i have touched a sensitive chord here. the truth always hurts. it might be an extravagant and colorful view of mine, i guess.

now, about my project. Are you (or any colleague of yours with practical interests in field) interested in it?

Kind regards Nikolaos Kavvadias

Reply to
Uncle Noah

I'm announcing the existence of the YARDstick tool. It is in a good state for real use. You know that (let's say) CorelDray started from version 1.0 and not

11.0... ^_^.

But i'm angry for him renaming this thread. I have never, ever, renamed a thread, whatever i was thinking of it.

And i donnot know Werty.

Reply to
Uncle Noah

BTW if your purpose is just to get more freebies for your personal collection, i do have some of my own here:

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I hoped that people would comment on the posted auto-generated files for a custom instruction, and not politics ^_^

Reply to
Uncle Noah

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