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PIC32MX Instruction Pipeline

Last modified by Microchip on 2023/11/09 09:00
Contents

Introduction

The control unit in all Central Processing Units (CPUs) follows the same basic instruction processing sequence:

  1. Fetch the instruction
  2. Decode the instruction
  3. Execute the instruction

On traditional CPUs, these phases are typically executed sequentially as shown in the accompanying image:

Sequential Instruction Execution

Modern, high-performance CPUs (like MIPS®) use a technique called pipelining, whereby these phases of instruction processing are executed in independent overlapping stages, as shown in the accompanying image:

Pipelined Instruction Execution

N-stage pipelines, therefore, have n-instructions at different stages of execution moving through the pipeline, similar to an automotive assembly line.

​Pipelines do not improve the instruction execution time (we still need to fetch+decode+execute), rather, they improve the instruction throughput. In our example, we increased the instruction throughput by three times via the three-stage pipeline.

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PIC32MX Pipeline

The MIPS® M4K® CPU core implements a five-stage pipeline as shown in the accompanying image:

PIC32MX Pipelined Instruction Execution

  • I-STAGE: INSTRUCTION FETCH
    • Fetch the instruction from cache/instruction SRAM. Increment the PC by four.
  • E-STAGE: EXECUTION
    • Fetch operands from the register file. Begin Arithmetical Logical Unit (ALU) Operation. Calculate the branch target address. Begin MDU operation.
  • M-STAGE: MEMORY FETCH
    • ALU Op Completes. Data cache/SRAM access is performed for load/store operations. MDU operations proceed.
  • A-STAGE: ALIGN
    • Align loaded data with its word boundary. Load data or MDU result to E-STAGE for bypassing.
  • W-STAGE: WRITEBACK
    • For register-to-register or load instructions, the result is written back to register file.

​In a multi-stage pipelined implementation, certain operations can lead to "interlocks" and "hazards". The effect of these is to reduce the instruction throughput. The M4K CPU core has been designed to minimize the effects of these hazards.

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Data Hazards

The term data hazard refers to the situation where results from prior ALU operations are required before they have been written back to the register file.

In the following example, the result of the first operation (in register t3) is required as input for execution of the second operation:​

1
2
add     t3, t2, t1    /* t3 = t2 + t1 */
sub     t4, t3, t7    /* t4 = t3 - t7 (HAZARD: t3 not written yet!) */

The M4K microprocessor cores implement a bypass mechanism that allows the result of an operation to be sent directly to the instruction that needs it without having to write the result to the register and then read it back.

The following diagram depicts the PIC32MX datapath, showing the A » E and M » E stage bypass connections:

PIC32MX datapath

The following pipeline diagram depicts how the result (t3) can be made available after the M-STAGE to the following instruction without stalling the pipeline:

Active A to E Stage Bypass on Data Hazard

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Control Hazards

Control hazards arise in pipelined CPU architectures whereby instructions that follow branch instructions are fetched by the control hardware, and (traditionally) are flushed if the branch is taken, reducing instruction throughput.

M4K CPU cores implement a delay slot in the pipeline and include branch target address calculation hardware in the E-stage of the pipeline.

For branch operations, these result in:

  • Having an instruction slot available after all branch instructions to do useful work
  • Guaranteeing that the pipeline fetches either the branch taken instruction or fall-through instruction in the cycle immediately following the delay slot

Since the branch cannot take effect until the second stage of the pipeline, we say that it is a delayed branch (i.e., the branch/jump will take place after the instruction following the branch is in the pipeline).

The following pipeline diagram demonstrates how either the branch taken instruction (label L2) or the fall-through instruction (label L1) is executed immediately after the delay slot instruction (sw t0, 0(sp)):

Pipeline diagram

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Summary

The PIC32MX pipeline begins the fetch of either the branch path or the fall-through path in the cycle following the delay slot. The MIPS programmer (or compiler!) must organize their code to perform some useful work during this delay slot, or simply insert a nop instruction.