UVM-REG Built-in Frontdoor and Bus byte enables computation issue?

[jordan]

Hi,

 

 

While debugging a prediction error returned by "Bit Bashing Test Sequence", I came to read the uvm_reg_map::do_bus_read/do_bus_write methods which seems incorrect when it comes to computing the "byte enable" for the bus accesses (ie data member "byte_en" of the object of type uvm_bus_reg_op created by those functions)

 

 

I'm explain the issue that I think I found here-below, can you please give me your feedback (Am i wrong or not?)

 

 

My understanding about "uvm_reg_map::do_bus_read/do_bus_write" methods about is that

• these methods are called when I request a frontdoor read/write access and  I don't supply a user frontdoor sequence.
• 
  
• these methods aimed at splitting the high level object uvm_reg_item into as many uvm_bus_reg_op as need on the real bus.
• 
  
• part of their role is to compute bus lane "byte enable" based on length and base address for a UVM_REG and length, base address and field offset in the reg for a UVM_FIELD
• 
  

 

The "uvm_reg_map::do_bus_read/do_bus_write" code extract I'm interested in here given here below with focus on bus byte enable (rw_access.byte_en) computation:

task uvm_reg_map::do_bus_write (uvm_reg_item rw,
                                uvm_sequencer_base sequencer,
                                uvm_reg_adapter adapter);
  [...]
  uvm_reg_byte_en_t  byte_en    = -1; // <= here the default value of byte_en is set to 'all ones'
  [...]
  foreach (rw.value[val_idx]) begin: foreach_value
    [...]
    /* calculate byte_enables */
    if (rw.element_kind == UVM_FIELD) begin // <= here byte_en is re-computed for UVM_FIELD only, not for UVM_REG
        [...]
    end
    [...]
    foreach(addrs[i]) begin: foreach_addr
      [...]
      uvm_reg_bus_op rw_access;
      [...]
      if (rw.element_kind == UVM_FIELD) begin // <= here the slice of the computed byte_en corresponding to
                                              //    the current bus address is applied to the bus (rw_access.byte_en)
                                              //     for UVM_FIELD only, not for UVM_REG
        for (int z=0;z<bus_width;z++)
          rw_access.byte_en[z] = byte_en[curr_byte+z];
      end
      [...]
      rw_access.byte_en = byte_en; // <= here for UVM_REG, the default 'all ones' byte_en value is applied
                                   //    and  for UVM_REG, the correct value of rw_access.byte_en assigned above is
                                   //     erroneously overwritten
      [...]
    end: foreach_addr
    [...]
  end: foreach_value
endtask: do_bus_write

But the extract of code here-below shows two issues:

• for a read/write to a UVM_REG, the byte_en is hard coded to "all ones" which seems incorrect to me in at least 2 cases:
  • if the bus is 4-Byte wide, a register R1 to write is 1-Byte wide and at address 1 and another register R0 is also 1-Byte wide and located at address 0, then trying to write R1, will also write R0.
  • 
    
  • if the bus is 4-Byte wide, a register R0 to write is 6-Byte wide and at address 0 and another register R1 is 1-Byte wide and located at address 6, then trying to write R0, will also write R1.
  • 
    
• 
  
• for a read/write to a UVM_FIELD, there's a complex computation of byte_en for the whole field , then another computation to extract the correct bus byte enable from the whole field byte_enable. Those 2 computations seems correct to me but the last assignemnt "rw_access.byte_en = byte_en;" breaks everything by systematically setting the same bus byte enables value. For a field spanning several bus addresses this is correct/acceptable for the first bus access but this incorrect for the other bus accesses.
• 
  

 

Any feedback welcome, thank you

Jordan

[ben.delsol]

I am seeing the same issue. UVM 1.1d.

[rajesh thyagarajan]

We also have a similar issue here.
We have some register which are updated through byte_enables.
I have used the option: supports_byte_enable =1 for the register adapter.
And my scoreboarding logics updates the register values with approriate write value and the corresponding byte_en.
During read operation, I supply the appropriate byte_en; and expected no data checks for the byte having corresponding byte_en :0.

I can see in the corresponding register, the byte_en being set appropriately. But, the check is also happening.

Any body tried working with byte_en and had it succesful in implementation.

Rgards, Rajesh

 

[uwes]

hi

the mentioned problem is part of https://accellera.mantishub.io/view.php?id=5446 

the fix is quite long and affects a couple of uvm functions.

/uwe