[Libre-soc-dev] scalar instructions and SVP64

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

ok.

so let's go through what is needed to implement this idea.

* first, we would need everyone to stop what they are doing.  that
includes world-wide IBM personnel whom Ganesan very kindly notified,
because the specification is now declared "invalid", also Paul who is
on holiday needs to be notified to stop looking at it.

* second the specification needs to be updated.  this will require a
minimum 3 weeks possibly 4 involving discussion of whether it's
appropriate, because some of the RM-NN-NNNN combinations are not going
to be possible.

* third, we need to start again with sv_analysis.py.  this will be 2
weeks of comprehensive detailed study of the entire v3.0B scalar ISA
to ensure that each instruction fits with the proposed change, and
approximately one week of implementation time.

* then the SVP64Asm class needs to be changed.  2-3 days

* then the SVP64RM class needs to be changed and associated
power_enum.py constants updated.  about 2-3 days.

* then PowerDecoder2 needs to be changed.  another week.

you get the idea.

questions:

1) do we have time to do that right now? answer: no

2) do we have the funding to do that right now? answer: no

3) what would be the impact of the above delays our completion
schedules?  answer: really bad.

you get the general idea?

if you were talking about a small incremental non-disruptive change, i
would not have any difficulty with this.  however the combinations of
EXTRA2/3 here:
https://libre-soc.org/openpower/sv/svp64/

they include MASK_SRC in two of them which takes up some of the bits.

this makes it basically flat-out impossible to do what you propose
without a massive disruptive rewrite.

so please.

can you please.

document the idea, raise a bugreport and then please,

help with implementation.

l.