UTLEON3: Exploring Fine-Grain Multi-Threading in FPGAs [Paperback]

This book describes a specification, microarchitecture, VHDL implementation and evaluation of a SPARC v8 CPU with fine-grain multi-threading, called micro-threading. The CPU, named UTLEON3, is an alternative platform for exploring CPU multi-threading that is compatible with the industry-standard GRLIB package. The processor microarchitecture was designed to map in an efficient way the data-flow scheme on a classical von Neumann pipelined processing used in common processors, while retaining full binary compatibility with existing legacy programs.

This book details the specifications, microarchitecture, VHDL implementation and evaluation of a SPARC v8 CPU with fine-grain multithreading, also known as micro-threading. This alternative CPU, named UTLEON3, is compatible with the standard GRLIB package.

Introduction.- The LEON3 Processor.- Microthreaded Extensions.- The Basic UTLEON3?Architecture.-?UTLEON3 Programming by Example.- UTLEON3 Implementation Details.- Execution Effieciency of?the Microthread Pipeline.-?Hardware Families of Threads.- I/O and Interrupt Handling in the Microthread Mode.- The IU3 Pipeline.- Excerpts from the LEON3 Instruction Set.- Relevant LEON3 Registers and Address Space Identifiers.-?Scheduler Example.- Used Resources.- Tutorial.

This book describes a specification, microarchitecture, VHDL implementation and evaluation of a SPARC v8 CPU with fine-grain multi-threading, called micro-threading. The CPU, named UTLEON3, is an alternative platform for exploring CPU multi-threading that is compatible with the industry-standard GRLIB package. The processor microarchitecture was designed to map in an efficient way the data-flow scheme on a classical von Neumann pipelined processing used in common processors, while retaining full binary compatibility with existing legacy programs.?

• Describes and documents a working SPARC v8, with fine-grain multithreading and fast context switch;