Mips branch delay slot exception

By Mark Zuckerberg

The MIPS R4000 has branch delay slots. Ugh. When you perform a branch instruction, the instruction after the branch instruction is executed ... For example, the BD bit is set if the exception occurred in a branch delay slot. Pietro Gagliardi (andlabs) says: April 12, 2018 at 8:50 am.

CMSC 411 Computer Systems Architecture Lecture 5 Basic Pipelining... CS252 S05 CMSC 411 - 5 (from Patterson) 9 Scheduling Branch Delay Slots • A is the best choice, fills delay slot & reduces instruction count (IC) • In B, the sub instruction may need to be copied, increasing IC • In B and C, must be okay to execute sub when branch fails add R1,R2,R3 if R2=0 then delay slot A. From before branch B. From branch target C. The MIPS R4000, part 8: Control transfer | The Old New Thing Another rule about branch delay slots is that if an exception occurs while executing the instruction in the branch delay slot, ... So the MIPS people added the “likely” version of the branch instructions which allows you to front-load the first instruction of the jump target in the branch delay slot. If the branch is not taken, the ... MIPS: tlbex: Properly fix HUGE TLB Refill exception handler In the octeon case, we modify k1 in the branch delay slot, but we never need k0 again, so the new load is not needed, but since k1 is modified, if we do the load, we load from a garbage location and then get a nested TLB Refill, which is seen in userspace as either SIGBUS or SIGSEGV (depending on the garbage).

The MIPS R4000, part 8: Control transfer | The Old New Thing

[mips] delay slot handling while stepping · Issue #332 ... This ties in with the other delay slot issues such as issue #330 for mips and so should be considered when implementing their fix.. I have come across another related issue to the mips branch delay problems. It may be considered that this is just how unicorn works with regards to delay slots. assembly - MIPS (PIC32): branch vs. branch likely ... So in the R4000 architecture, MIPS added Branch Likely instructions which still always fetch the instruction after the branch from the instruction cache, but only execute it if the branch is taken (opposite of what one might expect). Compilers can then always fill the branch delay slot on such a branch. A loop like:

The MIPS R4000, part 8: Control transfer – The Old New Thing

– 53% MIPS branches taken on average – But haven’t calculated branch target address in MIPS. • MIPS still incurs 1 cycle branch penalty • Other machines: branch– Restrictions on instructions scheduled into the delay slots – Ability to predict at compile-time whether a branch is likely to be. MIPS exception handling (Specifically branch delay slots

The MIPS R4000, part 8: Control transfer | The Old New Thing

So in the R4000 architecture, MIPS added Branch Likely instructions which still always fetch the instruction after the branch from the instruction cache, but only execute it if the branch is taken (opposite of what one might expect). Compilers can then always fill the branch delay slot on such a branch… pipeline - Does mips branch delay slots propagates through As a disclaimer, I've never worked with a real MIPS machine, but I imagine that using a branch delay slot for another branch will almost certainly cause problems. One common practice on processors like MIPS is to use the branch delay slot for a no-op, such as ori $0, $0, 0, just to make sure that nothing executes that isn't supposed to. MIPS architecture - Wikipedia All MIPS I control flow instructions are followed by a branch delay slot. Unless the branch delay slot is filled by an instruction performing useful work, an nop is substituted. MIPS I branch instructions compare the contents of a GPR (rs) against zero or another GPR (rt) as signed integers and branch … Having Fun with Branch Delay Slots – pagetable.com

A delay slot is created by a branch executing directly before it, what is in the delay slot never knows that it’s a delay slot. If you jump into what is a branch delay slot, then the preceding branch has it’s delay slot elsewhere. With MIPS it helps to think of the pipeline, so a load or a branch doesn’t update the registers directly.

Branches - CSE - IIT Kanpur #1: Stall until branch direction is clear (in MIPS: sll 0 0 ). #2: Predict ... –1 slot delay allows proper decision and branch target address in 5 stage pipeline. – MIPS ... Exception: An unusual event happens to an instruction during its execution. Migrating from MIPS to ARM - ARM Infocenter External interrupts are mapped to the FIQ and IRQ exceptions. ..... MIPS branch instructions can only be conditional on comparison between two registers ... branch instructions have a “branch shadow”, sometimes called a “branch delay slot”. MIPS® Architecture For Programmers Volume IA ... - Amazon S3 Aug 20, 2014 ... Chapter 2: Overview of the MIPS® Architecture. ..... 4.10.6.2: Instruction Fetch Exceptions on Branch Delay Slots and Forbidden Slots. 11 - 1DT085_L10_pipeline2.pptx