C28x Pipeline Conflicts

Introduction

Conflicts cause dead cycles and hence affect the performance of C28x code. These can occur due to any one of the following conditions:

1. Register Conflict
2. Write followed by read: same location, or W-then-read protected region
3. Wait stated memory or peripheral
4. Multiple accesses to a single access memory (e.x. SARAM)

This wiki article discuss how some conflicts arise and some suggested guidelines for avoiding them.

Other Resources

The C28x pipeline is described in the TMS320C28x CPU and Instruction Set Reference Guide

Register Conflicts

Register conflicts occur when the current instruction modifies a register and that register is then used in following instruction. The current instruction can effect up to the next 3 instructions (regardless of size). The impact decreases as the distance from the instruction increases.

General Guidelines

How do you determine register conflicts? This is a little complicated because some instructions modify a register in the D2 phase and some in the E phase. Also, the loc16/loc32 field has addressing modes which generate an address in the D2 phase and modes which operate in the E phase.

In general, registers are modified either in the D2 or E phase.

• @ARn, @XARn and @SP addressing modes generally use the register in the D2 phase
• @AH, @AL, @ACC, @PH, @PL, @PX, and @T addressing mode generally use the register in the Exe phase
• Direct addressing using DP: generate an address in the D2 phase
• Indirect addressing such as *--SP[], *XARn++ etc, generate an address in the D2 phase

The following table shows some of the most common register operations. This list is not exhaustive.

Case	Destination Operand	Source Operand	Pipeline Phase	Notes
1.1	REG = ARx, XARx, DP	#immediate	D2	Register updated by immediate
1.2	REG = SP	#immediate	Exe	Register updated by immediate
1.3	REG = ARx, XARx, DP, SP	loc16/loc32	Exe	Register updated by loc16/loc32
2.1		REG = ARx, XARx	D2	Registers are read in D2
3.1	REG = AH, AL, ACC, PH, PL, P, T	#immediate	Exe	Registers updated by immediate
3.2	REG = AH, AL, ACC, PH, PL, P, T	loc16/loc32	Exe	Registers updated by loc16/loc32
4.1		REG = AH, AL, ACC, PH, PL, P, T	Exe	Registers are read in Exe
5.1		loc16/loc32 = @AL, @AH, @PH, @PL, @T	Exe	Registers are read in Exe
5.2		loc16/loc32 = @ARx, @XARx, @SP	D2	Registers are read in D2
5.3		Indirect addressing or DP addressing	D2	Address generation in D2
6.1	loc16/loc32 = @ARn, @XARn, @SP, @AL, @AH, @PL, @PH, @PX, @T		Exe	Register written to in Exe
6.2	Indirect addressing or DP addressing		D2	Address generation in D2

Examples

Once we know in which phase a register is modified, look for combination of instructions where the register is modified in the E phase by the current instruction and the register is modified in the D2 phase of the next instruction. The examples below show combination of instruction which cause conflicts. Note, not every example makes sense! This is not an exhaustive example, but the general idea should be there.

MOV     AR0,*XAR7       ; AR0 written in Exe  (1.3)
MOVB    AR0,#8bit       ; AR0 written in D2   (1.1) (conflict)

MOV     AR0,*XAR7       ; AR0 written in Exe  (1.3)
MOV     *--SP[2],AR0    ; AR0 read in D2      (2.1) (conflict)

MOV     @AR0,AR1        ; AR0 written in Exe  (6.1)
MOV     AR0,#8bit       ; AR0 written in D2   (1.1) (conflict)

MOV     @AR0,AR1        ; AR0 written in Exe  (6.1)
MOV     AR2,*AR0        ; Address (from AR0) generated in D2 (5.3) (conflict)

MOV     @AR0,AL         ; AR0 written in Exe  (6.1)
MOV     AH,*AR0         ; Address (from AR0) generated in D2 (5.3) (conflict)

Removing Register Conflicts

The trick is to identify the conflicts and move or re-arrange the order of instructions such as to place as much distance between the offending instructions. It should be noted that the compiler can perform this automatically. It is recommended that assembly language programmers write their code and ignore pipeline conflicts (unless they are obvious) and then optimize the code at a later stage.