International Business Machines Corporation

Paul Umbarger

Debapriya Chatterjee

John Andrew Schumann

George William Daly, Jr

Karen E Yokum

Bryant Cockcroft

Kevin Barnett

Ravi Kumar Arimilli

Paul Frank Lecocq

Tharunachalam Pindicura

Jeffrey W Kellington

Lance G Hehenberger

Jamory Hawkins

Lawrence Leitner

Omesh Bajaj

James Stephen Fields, Jr

Kenneth Lee Wright

Piriya K Hall

Provided are systems, methods, and media for handling simulation of logic under test. An example method includes receiving a simulation model for the logic under test. Generating second logic that is configured to create a set of output logic signals based on an existing set of input logic signals of the logic under test. Rebuilding the simulation model based, at least in part, on the second logic. Examining a netlist of the rebuilt simulation model to identify the set of output logic signals created by the second logic. Generating during the execution of the simulation, a bus trace that is configured to capture at least the identified set of output logic signals.

Generating and adding additional control information to logic under test to facilitate debugging and comprehension of a simulation

A method of checking for a stall condition in a processor is disclosed, the method including inserting an inline instruction sequence into a thread, the inline instruction sequence configured to read the result from a timing register during processing of a first instruction and store the result in a first general purpose register, wherein the timing register functions as a timer for the processor; and read the results from the timing register during processing of a second instruction and store the results in a second general purpose register, wherein the second instruction is the next consecutive instruction after the first instruction. The inline thread sequence may be inserted in sequence with the thread and further configured to compare the difference between the result in the first and second general purpose register to a programmable threshold.

Method and system for detection of thread stall

A computer system includes a hardware accelerator and host processor. The hardware accelerator executes a simulation of a first logical model according to a plurality of simulation cycles. The host processor determines a fault checkpoint based on a logic fault that occurs in response to executing the simulation. The host processor verifies removal of the logic fault based on rerunning the simulation from the fault checkpoint.

Precise verification of a logic problem on a simulation accelerator

A method, system and computer program product for handling write requests in a data processing system is disclosed. The method comprises receiving on an interconnect bus a first write request targeted to a first address and receiving on the interconnect bus a subsequent second write request targeted to a subsequent second address. The subsequent second write request is completed prior to completing the first write request, and, responsive to receiving a read request targeting the second address before the first write request has completed, data associated with the second address of the second write request is supplied only after the first write request completes.

Method to preserve ordering of read and write operations in a DMA system by delaying read access

A data processing system that provides a DMA Exclusive state that enables pipelining of Input/Output (I/O) DMA Write transactions. The data processing system includes a system processor, a system bus, a memory, a plurality of I/O components and an I/O processor. The data processing system further comprises operational protocol providing a pair of instructions/commands that are utilized to complete a DMA Write operation. The pair of instructions is DMA_Write_No_Data and DMA_Write With_Data. DMA_Write_No_Data is an address-only operation on the system bus that is utilized to acquire &ldquo;DMA ownership&rdquo; of a cache line that is to be written. The initial ownership of the cache line is marked by a weak DMA state (D1), which indicates that the cache line is being held for writing to the memory, but that the cache line cannot yet force a retry of snooped operations. When each preceding DMA Write operation has completed or each corresponding DMA_Write_No_Data operation has been placed in a DMA Exclusive (D2) state, then the next cache line in a weak DMA state transitions to a DMA Exclusive (D2) state, which forces a retry of snooped operations until the DMA_Write_With_Data transaction to memory is completed. Accordingly, DMA_Write_No_Data operations that are provided sequentially may be completed in a parallel manner on the system bus although the corresponding DMA_Write_With_Data is held until a DMA Exclusive state attaches to the cache line. Also, the DMA_Write_With_Data may be completed out of order and once the write of the cache line is completed, the coherency state transitions from the DMA Exclusive state to the MESI Exclusive (E) state or the MESI Invalidate (I) state depending on processor operating characteristics.

DMA exclusive cache state providing a fully pipelined input/output DMA write mechanism

A method and data processing system that supports pipelining of Input/Output (I/O) DMA Write transactions. An I/O processor's operational protocol is provided with a pair of instructions/commands that are utilized to complete a DMA Write operation. The instructions are DMA_Write_No_Data and DMA_Write_With_Data. DMA_Write_No_Data is an address-only operation on the system bus that is utilized to acquire ownership of a cache line that is to be written. The ownership of the cache line is marked by a weak DMA state, which indicates that the cache line is being held for writing to the memory, but that the cache line cannot yet force a retry of snooped operations. When each preceding DMA Write operation has completed or each corresponding DMA_Write_No_Data operation has been placed in a DMA Exclusive state, then the weak DMA state is changed to a DMA Exclusive state, which forces a retry of snooped operations until the write transaction to memory is completed. In this way, DMA Writes that are provided sequentially may be issued in a parallel manner on the system bus and their corresponding DMA_Write_No_Data operations may be completed in any order, but cannot be made DMA Exclusive unless the above conditions are satisfied. Further, once a DMA Exclusive state is acquired, a DMA_Write_With_Data may be issued for each of the sequential DMA Write operations in the DMA Exclusive state. The DMA_Write_With_Data may then be completed out-of-order with respect to each other. However, the system processor is sent the completion messages in the sequential order of the DMA Write operations, thus adhering to the processor requirements for ordered operations while providing fully-pipelined (parallel) execution of the DMA transactions.

Microprocessor system bus protocol providing a fully pipelined input/output DMA write mechanism

A data processing system includes a plurality of snoopers coupled to an interconnect. In response to a memory access request transmitted on an interconnect by one of the snoopers receiving a Retry response, a determination is made whether or not the Retry response was caused by a target snooper that will service the memory access request. If not, the target snooper services the memory access request in spite of the Retry response. In a preferred embodiment in which the memory access request is a write request and the target snooper is a memory controller, stale data cached by at least one snooper in association with the address are also invalidated by a snooper, such as the memory controller, transmitting at least one address-only kill transaction on the interconnect. Advantageously, the address-only kill transaction can be issued concurrently with or following servicing the write request so that the write request does not incur latency by waiting until all stale copies of the data have been invalidated.

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Austin, TX, United States of America

Paul Umbarger