6.1. Heterogeneous SoCs

The Chipyard framework involves multiple cores and accelerators that can be composed in arbitrary ways. This discussion will focus on how you combine Rocket, BOOM and Hwacha in particular ways to create a unique SoC.

6.1.1. Creating a Rocket and BOOM System

Instantiating an SoC with Rocket and BOOM cores is all done with the configuration system and two specific config fragments. Both BOOM and Rocket have config fragments labelled WithN{Small|Medium|Large|etc.}BoomCores(X) and WithNBigCores(X) that automatically create X copies of the core/tile [1]. When used together you can create a heterogeneous system.

The following example shows a dual core BOOM with a single core Rocket.

class DualLargeBoomAndSingleRocketConfig extends Config(
  new boom.common.WithNLargeBooms(2) ++                   // add 2 boom cores
  new freechips.rocketchip.subsystem.WithNBigCores(1) ++  // add 1 rocket core
  new chipyard.config.WithSystemBusWidth(128) ++
  new chipyard.config.AbstractConfig)

6.1.2. Adding Hwachas

Adding a Hwacha accelerator is as easy as adding the DefaultHwachaConfig so that it can setup the Hwacha parameters and add itself to the BuildRoCC parameter. An example of adding a Hwacha to all tiles in the system is below.

class HwachaLargeBoomAndHwachaRocketConfig extends Config(
  new chipyard.config.WithHwachaTest ++
  new hwacha.DefaultHwachaConfig ++                          // add hwacha to all harts
  new boom.common.WithNLargeBooms(1) ++                      // add 1 boom core
  new freechips.rocketchip.subsystem.WithNBigCores(1) ++     // add 1 rocket core
  new chipyard.config.WithSystemBusWidth(128) ++
  new chipyard.config.AbstractConfig)

In this example, Hwachas are added to both BOOM tiles and to the Rocket tile. All with the same Hwacha parameters.

6.1.3. Assigning Accelerators to Specific Tiles with MultiRoCC

Located in generators/chipyard/src/main/scala/config/fragments/RoCCFragments.scala is a config fragment that provides support for adding RoCC accelerators to specific tiles in your SoC. Named MultiRoCCKey, this key allows you to attach RoCC accelerators based on the hartId of the tile. For example, using this allows you to create a 8 tile system with a RoCC accelerator on only a subset of the tiles. An example is shown below with two BOOM cores, and one Rocket tile with a RoCC accelerator (Hwacha) attached.

class DualLargeBoomAndHwachaRocketConfig extends Config(
  new chipyard.config.WithMultiRoCC ++                                  // support heterogeneous rocc
  new chipyard.config.WithMultiRoCCHwacha(0) ++                         // put hwacha on hart-0 (rocket)
  new hwacha.DefaultHwachaConfig ++                                     // set default hwacha config keys
  new boom.common.WithNLargeBooms(2) ++                                 // add 2 boom cores
  new freechips.rocketchip.subsystem.WithNBigCores(1) ++                // add 1 rocket core
  new chipyard.config.WithSystemBusWidth(128) ++
  new chipyard.config.AbstractConfig)

The WithMultiRoCCHwacha config fragment assigns a Hwacha accelerator to a particular hartId (in this case, the hartId of 0 corresponds to the Rocket core). Finally, the WithMultiRoCC config fragment is called. This config fragment sets the BuildRoCC key to use the MultiRoCCKey instead of the default. This must be used after all the RoCC parameters are set because it needs to override the BuildRoCC parameter. If this is used earlier in the configuration sequence, then MultiRoCC does not work.

This config fragment can be changed to put more accelerators on more cores by changing the arguments to cover more hartId’s (i.e. WithMultiRoCCHwacha(0,1,3,6,...)).

Since config fragments are applied from right-to-left (or bottom-to-top as they are formatted here), the right-most config fragment specifying a core (which is freechips.rocketchip.subsystem.WithNBigCores in the example above) gets the first hart ID. Consider this config:

class RocketThenBoomHartIdTestConfig extends Config(
  new boom.common.WithNLargeBooms(2) ++
  new freechips.rocketchip.subsystem.WithNBigCores(3) ++
  new chipyard.config.AbstractConfig)

This specifies an SoC with three Rocket cores and two BOOM cores. The Rocket cores would have hart IDs 0, 1, and 2, while the BOOM cores would have hard IDs 3 and 4. On the other hand, consider this config which reverses the order of those two fragments:

class BoomThenRocketHartIdTestConfig extends Config(
  new freechips.rocketchip.subsystem.WithNBigCores(3) ++
  new boom.common.WithNLargeBooms(2) ++
  new chipyard.config.AbstractConfig)

This also specifies an SoC with three Rocket cores and two BOOM cores, but because the BOOM config fragment is evaluated before the Rocket config fragment, the hart IDs are reversed. The BOOM cores would have hart IDs 0 and 1, while the Rocket cores would have hard IDs 2, 3, and 4.