Softvector

This project targets functional simulation of Vector Processing Units (VPUs). It wraps highly abstraced vector arithmetic functions around a target specific interface.

SoftVector mainly focuses the RISC-V Vector (RVV) Instruction Set and was built as a support library for ETISS.

• The Extendable Translating Instruction Set Simulator (ETISS)

The CMake project builds a shared library containing generic RISC-V helper/soft functions for RVV, i.e. ..

• Soft: A high level implementation including unit test support for SoftVector verification

Getting Started

Requirements

• CMake >= v3.15
• Graphviz + Doxygen (for documentation generation)

Build:

Create Build directory <softvector_build_path>:

mkdir <softvector_build_path>

Change to the created directory:

cd <softvector_build_path>

Configure the build system. Replace with either 'ETISS' or 'soft'. Statements in [ .. ] are optional:

cmake .. -DTARGET_NAME<target> -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=`pwd`/installed [-DTEST_BUILD=1] 

Build the project:

make

(Build the source file documentation):

make doc

Test

If -DTEST_BUILD=1 was specified and the target supports unit tests (currently only RISC-V soft), the test can be executed with

make test

This tests softvector against a set of 'golden' inputs for the specified target. For RVV 'soft' these are pre-configured vector register files and sample memory vectors which are altered by a SoftVector RVV instruction. The output is compared against expected states specified in the 'golden' file.

Licensing and Copyright

See the separate LICENSE file to determine your rights and responsibilities for using SoftVector.

User Documentation

The documentation is optionally built with SoftVector and can be found in <softvector_build_path>/doc/html/index.html