Coverage Plan

Todo

Branch prediction hasn’t yet been considered, this will add more coverage points and alter some others

Introduction

Ibex functional coverage is split into two major categories:

• Architectural coverage - which is concerned with instructions being executed and exercising various features of the RISC-V architecture (e.g. PMP) and does not consider the details of how this execution occurs.

• Microarchitectural coverage - which is concerned with the specifics of the RTL operation, ensuring interesting corner cases are seen along with various micro-architectural events (e.g. the different kinds of stall) and combinations of them.

Architectural coverage is not Ibex specific. It can be determined directly from a trace of executed instructions and is handled by RISCV-DV, details can be found in the RISCV-DV documentation.

Microarchitectural coverage will probe the Ibex RTL directly and is described here. There is some inevitable overlap between architectural and microarchitectural coverage but we aim to minimise it.

Coverage Implementation

All coverpoints and cross coverage defined below is associated with a name cp_name. This is the name of the coverpoint or cross that implements the described coverage. Coverage is implemented in two files; dv/uvm/core_ibex/fcov/core_ibex_pmp_fcov_if.sv for PMP related coverage and dv/uvm/core_ibex/fcov/core_ibex_fcov_if.sv for everything else.

Microarchitectural Events and Behaviour

Below are lists of specific things from the microarchitecture that will be included in functional coverage. Each of the points listed below must be covered. This will be further combined using cross coverage which is described in the section below.

Instructions

Categories

cp_id_instr_category

Instructions can be grouped into a number of categories. Each category exercises different data and control paths in the core. For example the ADD and SUB instructions are in the same category as they are almost identical for the microarchitecture (both read two registers and write to one, both feed operands to the ALU and take their result from it, both have the same response to interrupts etc; the only difference is the ALU operation).

Instructions can be compressed or uncompressed but that isn’t factored into the instruction categories below (excepting for illegal instructions). The decompression occurs in the IF stage and is invisible to the ID/EX stage so isn’t relevant for instruction execution. A separate set of category-agnostic compressed instruction behaviour is considered instead.

An instruction category is sampled at the ID/EX stage (which is where all the varying behaviours actually occur). Some categories are just a single instruction, which is named without further description.

• ALU - All of the reg/reg reg/imm instructions that use the ALU. This is any RISC-V instruction with an opcode of 7'b0010011 or 7'b0110011 (ibex_pkg::OPCODE_OP and ibex_pkg::OPCODE_OP_IMM) other than the MUL* and DIV* family of instructions (from RV32M).

• Mul - Any MUL* instruction (from RV32M).

• Div - Any DIV* instruction (from RV32M).

• Branch - Any B* family branch instruction.

• Jump - JAL/JALR

• Load - Any L* family load instruction.

• Store - Any S* family load instruction.

• CSRAccess - Any instruction from Zicsr.

• EBreakDbg/EBreakExc - An EBREAK instruction that either enters debug mode (Dbg) or causes an exception (Exc). Which occurs depends upon the setting of dcsr.ebreakm / dcsr.ebreaku combined with the privilege level of executed instruction.

• ECall - ECALL is an environment call used for escalation of privilege.

• MRet - MRET return out of M-mode

• DRet - DRET ruturn from debug mode.

• WFI - wait for interrupt.

• Fence - FENCE memory fence on the data side.

• FenceI - FENCE.I instruction fence instruction.

• FetchError - Any instruction that saw a fetch error.

• CompressedIllegal - Any compressed instruction with an illegal encoding.

• UncompressedIllegal - Any uncompressed instruction with an illegal encoding.

• CSRIllegal - Any instruction attempting a CSR access that is not allowed.

• PrivIllegal - Illegal due to privilege level or being in/out of debug mode.

• OtherIllegal - Any other instruction that raises an Illegal instruction exception that isn’t in the other categories.

• None - No instruction in ID/EX stage.

Stalls

cp_stall_type_id

Not all instructions can see all kinds of stalls. A stall category is sampled at the ID/EX stage only (as stalls in IF and WB don’t break down into categories).

• Instr - A stall caused by a multi-cycle instruction. This can be seen by instructions from categories:

  • MUL

  • DIV

  • Branch

  • Jump

• LdHz - A load hazard, the instruction in ID/EX depends upon the result of a load that is awaiting a response in writeback. This can be seen by instructions from categories:

  • ALU

  • Mul

  • Div

  • Branch

  • Jump

  • Load

  • Store

  • CSRAccess

• Mem - Memory stall, the instruction in ID/EX is awaiting a prior memory request to complete before it can begin (to allow precise interrupts on a memory error response). This can be seen for all instruction categories

Privilege Level

Ibex can operate at either the M (machine) or U (user) privilege levels. Different aspects of the Ibex microarchitecture can be using different privilege levels at once.

• cp_priv_mode_id - Privilege level of ID/EX stage instruction.

• cp_priv_mode_lsu - Privilege level of LSU operation (ID/EX privilege level modified by mstatus.mprv and mstatus.mpp settings).

Note that the privilege level of the instruction in WB isn’t retained by the microarchitecture and is not relevant to coverage. The privilege level of the IF instruction is effectively unknown. The instruction is checked when moving from IF to ID/EX against the ID stage privilege level to check if execution is permitted by PMP. Any instruction that reaches WB can be considered bound to retire and any relevant checks and functionality altered by the privilege mode is dealt with at an earlier stage.

Hazards

Ibex hazards all occur in the interaction between the ID and EX stage.

• RAW Reg - Read after write hazard, instruction in ID/EX reads a register that writeback is writing. Split into two versions:

  • RAW load - Instruction in ID/EX reading from destination of load in writeback. Produces a stall (Category LdHz) and shouldn’t forward data. Covered by cp_stall_type_id

  • cp_wb_reg_no_load_hz - Instruction in writeback isn’t a load. Handled with data forwarding and no stall.

• RAW Load/Store bytes - Load with bytes overlapping a store immediately before it. Covered by cp_mem_raw_hz

State Specific Behaviour

Some instructions will behave differently depending upon the state of the processor (e.g. the privilege level the instruction executes at, CSR settings or whether the processor is in debug mode).

• Instruction illegal in U Mode.

  • cp_mret_in_umode - MRET

  • cp_wfi_in_umode - WFI

  • Read and write to M-mode CSR - Covered by crosses csr_write_priv_cross and csr_read_only_priv_cross`

• Debug mode instructions (cover execution in and out of debug mode).

  • DRET

  • csr_read_only_debug_cross, csr_write_debug_cross - Access to debug CSRs.

    • dcsr

    • dpc

    • dscratch0

    • dscratch1

  • Access to trigger CSRs (also possible in M mode: cover execution in M mode, debug mode and U mode). Covered by csr_read_only_debug_cross, csr_write_debug_cross, csr_read_only_priv_cross, csr_write_priv_cross.

    • tselect

    • tdata1

    • tdata2

    • tdata3

• Loads/stores with mstatus.mprv set and unset. Covered by mprv_effect_cross

• EBreak behaviour in U/M mode with different dcsr.ebreakm / dcsr.ebreaku settings. Covered by priv_mode_instr_cross

• cp_single_step_instr - Single step over every instruction category

Pipeline State

Each pipeline stage has some associated state.

• cp_if_stage_state - IF stage full and fetching, full and idle, empty and fetching, or empty and idle. General IF stage full and stalled uninteresting as will only occur when ID stage is full and stalled.

• cp_wb_stage_state - WB stage full and stalled, full and unstalled, or empty

• cp_id_stage_state - ID stage full and stalled, full and unstalled, or empty.

• Controller (within ID stage) state machine states

  • cp_controller_fsm - Possible transitions between these states.

    • RESET -> BOOT_SET

    • BOOT_SET -> FIRST_FETCH

    • FIRST_FETCH -> DECODE

    • FIRST_FETCH -> IRQ_TAKEN

    • FIRST_FETCH -> DBG_TAKEN_IF

    • DECODE -> FLUSH

    • DECODE -> DBG_TAKEN_IF

    • DECODE -> IRQ_TAKEN

    • IRQ_TAKEN -> DECODE

    • DBG_TAKEN_IF -> DECODE

    • DBG_TAKEN_ID -> DECODE

    • FLUSH -> DECODE

    • FLUSH -> DBG_TAKEN_ID

    • FLUSH -> WAIT_SLEEP

    • FLUSH -> DBG_TAKEN_IF

    • WAIT_SLEEP -> SLEEP

    • SLEEP -> FIRST_FETCH

Exceptions/Interrupts/Debug

Exceptions, interrupts and debug entry can all cause control flow changes combined with CSR writes and privilege level changes and work quite similarly within the controller but not identically. Furthermore they can all occur together and must be appropriately prioritised (consider an instruction with hardware trigger point matching it, that causes some exception and an interrupt is raised the cycle it enters the ID/EX stage).

• Exception from instruction fetch error (covered by the FetchError instruction category).

• pmp_iside_mode_cross - Exception from instruction PMP violation.

• Exception from illegal instruction (covered by the illegal instruction categories).

• cp_ls_error_exception - Exception from memory fetch error.

• cp_ls_pmp_exception - Load store unit exception from PMP.

• pmp_dside_mode_cross - Exception from memory access PMP violation.

• Unaligned memory access

  • misaligned_insn_bus_err_cross, misaligned_data_bus_err_cross - Cover all error and no error scenarios for memory fetch error; first access saw error, second access saw error, neither access saw error

• Interrupt raised/taken.

  • cp_interrupt_taken - Interrupt raised/taken for each available interrupt line. For cross coverage, the precise interrupt that’s raised/taken is not relevant and it only needs to be grouped by NMI vs non-NMI. This is done by using cp_nmi_taken coverpoint in the crosses.

  • interrupt_taken_instr_cross - Interrupt raised/taken the first cycle an instruction is in ID/EX or some other cycle the instruction is in ID/EX.

• cp_debug_req - External debug request.

• cp_single_step_taken - Instruction executed when debug single step enabled.

• cp_single_step_exception - Single step over an instruction that takes an exception.

• cp_insn_trigger_enter_debug - Instruction matches hardware trigger point.

• cp_debug_mode - Ibex operating in debug mode.

• cp_debug_wakeup - Ibex wakes up after being halted from debug request.

• irq_wfi_cross, debug_wfi_cross - Debug and Interrupt whilst sleeping with WFI

  • Cover with global interrupts enabled and disabled

  • Cover with specific interrupt enabled and disabled (Should exit sleep when interrupt is enabled but global interrupts set to disabled, should continue sleeping when both are disabled). Continuing to sleep in the case explained above is covered by cp_irq_continue_sleep, otherwise the behaviour is captured in irq_wfi_cross

• Debug and interrupt occurring whilst entering WFI

  • Covering period between WFI entering ID/EX stage and going into sleep Covered by bin enter_sleep of cp_controller_fsm_sleep that is used by irq_wfi_cross and debug_wfi_cross.

• cp_double_fault - Double fault

PMP

• cp_region_mode - Each region configured with different matching modes.

  • Off

  • TOR

  • NA4

  • NAPOT

• cp_napot_addr_modes - When NAPOT is enabled check that each address mode is seen at least once.

• cp_region_priv_bits - Each region configured with all possible permissions including locked/unlocked.

  • Different permissions with MML enabled and disabled, separate cover points for R/W/X/L values with and without MML.

• Access fail & pass.

  • misaligned_lsu_access_cross - All combinations of unaligned access split across a boundary, both halves pass, neither pass, just the first passes, just the second passes.

    • Two possible boundary splits; across a 32-bit boundary within a region or a boundary between PMP regions.

  • cp_pmp_iside_region_override, cp_pmp_iside2_region_override, cp_pmp_dside_region_override - Higher priority entry allows access that lower priority entry prevents.

  • pmp_instr_edge_cross - Compressed instruction access (16-bit) passes PMP but 32-bit access at same address crosses PMP region boundary.

• Each field of mssecfg enabled/disabled, as well as written to using a CSR write, with relevant functionality tested.

  • RLB - rule locking bypass.

    • cp_edit_locked_pmpcfg, cp_edit_locked_pmpaddr - Modify locked region with RLB set.

    • rlb_csr_cross - Try to enable RLB when RLB is disabled and locked regions present.

  • MMWP - machine mode whitelist policy.

    • pmp_dside/iside/iside2_nomatch_cross - M-mode access fail due to not matching any PMP regions.

    • mmwp_csr_cross - Try to disable when enabled.

  • MML - machine mode lockdown policy.

    • mml_sticky_cross - Try to disable when enabled.

• Access close to PMP region modification that allows/disallows that access.

• pmp_wr_exec_region - Explores behaviour around adding executable regions when MML is enabled.

  Cross of current region configuration with region configuration that is being written and RLB setting. It only considers regions that aren’t currently executable with writes attempted to make them executable. Non MML configurations are not sampled.

CSRs

Basic read/write functionality must be tested on all implemented CSRs.

• cp_csr_read_only - Read from CSR, there is also cp_csr_invalid_read_only for illegal CSRs.

• cp_csr_write - Write to CSR, there is also cp_csr_invalid_write for illegal CSRs.

  • Write to read only CSR. Covered by ensuring cp_csr_write is seen for read-only CSRs

• cp_warl_check_CSRNAME - Write illegal/unsupported value to WARL field for CSR named CSRNAME.

• csr_read_only_priv_cross, csr_write_priv_cross, csr_read_only_debug_cross, csr_write_debug_cross - Crosses of reads and writes to CSRs from different privilege levels/debug mode.

  • Access to CSR disallowed due to privilege levels/debug mode Covered by ensuring within the crosses

CSRs addresses do not need to be crossed with the variety of CSR instructions as these all use the same basic read & write interface into ibex_cs_registers. Coverage of the above points will be sampled at the ibex_cs_registers interface (as opposed to sampling CSR instructions).

Security Countermeasures

For more detail about each security countermeasure in Ibex see Security Features

• cp_data_ind_timing - Enabling/Disabling “Data Independent Timing” feature.

• cp_data_ind_timing_instr - Executing each instruction category while data independent timing feature is enabled.

• cp_dummy_instr_en - Enabling/Disabling “Dummy Instruction Insertion” feature.

• cp_dummy_instr_mask - Frequency of injection for the dummy instructions.

• cp_dummy_instr_type - Type of the injected dummy instruction.

• cp_dummy_instr - Executing each instruction category while dummy instruction insertion feature is enabled.

• cp_dummy_instr_if_stage - The IF stage handles a dummy instruction.

• cp_dummy_instr_id_stage - The ID/EX stage handles a dummy instruction.

• cp_dummy_instr_wb_stage - The WB stage handles a dummy instruction.

• cp_rf_a_ecc_err, cp_rf_b_ecc_err - Register file integrity (ECC) fault is seen for port A/B.

• cp_icache_ecc_err - ICache has seen an integrity (ECC) fault.

• cp_mem_load_ecc_err - An ECC error has been seen on a load response

• cp_mem_store_ecc_err - An ECC error has been seen on a store response

• cp_lockstep_err - Lockstep glitch fault seen.

• cp_rf_we_glitch_err - Register file write enable glitch fault seen.

• cp_pc_mismatch_err - PC mismatch error seen.

The security features Ibex implements are given specific security countermeasure names in OpenTitan (see ‘Security Countermeasures’ in the Comportability Definition and Specification documentation section). The mapping between security countermeasures and coverpoints that demonstrate it being used is given below.

Security Countermeasure	Coverpoint(s)
BUS.INTEGRITY	cp_mem_load_ecc_err cp_mem_store_ecc_err
SCRAMBLE.KEY.SIDELOAD	FENCE.I of cp_id_instr_category
CORE.DATA_REG_SW.SCA	cp_data_ind_timing cp_data_ind_timining_instr
PC.CTRL_FLOW.CONSISTENCY	cp_pc_mismatch_err
CTRL_FLOW.UNPREDICTABLE	cp_dummy_instr and related coverpoints
DATA_REG_SW.INTEGRITY	cp_rf_a_ecc_err cp_rf_b_ecc_err
DATA_REG_SW.GLITCH_DETECT	cp_rf_we_glitch_err
LOGIC.SHADOW	cp_lockstep_err
FETCH.CTRL.LC_GATED	cp_fetch_enable
EXCEPTION.CTRL_FLOW.LOCAL_ESC	cp_double_fault
EXCEPTION.CTRL_FLOW.GLOBAL_ESC	cp_double_fault
ICACHE.MEM.SCRAMBLE	FENCE.I of cp_id_instr_category
ICACHE.MEM.INTEGRITY	cp_icache_ecc_err

Memory Interface Behaviour

Covering different scenarios around timing of memory requests and responses and related behaviour

• cp_dmem_response_latency/cp_imem_response_latency - Latency of response from request for dmem and imem. Separated into two bins single_cycle (immediate response after request) and multi_cycle (all other latencies).

• dmem_req_gnt_valid/imem_req_gnt_rvalid - Request, grant and rvalid all seen in the same cycle for dmem and imem. This means a response is seen the same cycle a new request is being granted.

Miscellaneous

Various points of interest do not fit into the categories above.

• instr_unstalled - Instruction unstalled - Cover the cycle an instruction is unstalled having just been stalled.

• cp_icache_enable - Enabling/Disabling ICache.

• cp_fetch_enable - Fetch enabled and disabled via top-level fetch_enable_i input.

Cross Coverage

Much of the more complex behaviour lies at the combination of the individual microarchitectural behaviours above. Cross coverage is used to capture that. Crosses listed below are ones that don’t already fit into the above categories. There are some broad crosses containing many bins aiming to capture all combinations of some generalised behaviours as well as some more specific ones to capture all combinations of behaviours focused on a particular area.

Cross coverage will be intentionally broad. Where it is proving hard to hit particular bins they will be reviewed in more detail to determine if they’re impossible to hit or if simply hard to hit and whether hitting them provides meaningful gains to verification quality.

Excluded bins will either become illegal bins (where they are impossible to hit, so a failure will be seen if they are hit) or ignore bins (where they don’t factor into coverage statistics). There must be a documented reason a particular bin is added to the illegal or ignore bins.

• pipe_cross - Instruction Categories x Pipeline stage states across IF, ID/EX and WB

  • Covers all possibilities of instruction combinations that could fill the pipeline. State only for IF/WB suffices to cover this as all the interesting per instruction behaviour occurs in ID/EX.

  • All bins containing instruction categories other than None ignored when ID/EX stage is empty.

• priv_mode_instr_cross - Instructions Categories x ID/EX Privilege level

• stall_cross - Instruction Categories x Stall Categories

  • Illegal bins will be used to exclude instruction and stall categories that cannot occur.

• wb_reg_no_load_hz_instr_cross - Instruction Categories x Hazards

  • stall_cross covers the RAW load hazard (as it produces a LdHz stall).

  • RAW hazard between load/store requires no cross coverage as it’s only seen for load and store instructions so the single coverpoint suffices.

• debug_instruction_cross - Instruction Categories x Debug Mode

• controller_instr_cross - Instruction Categories x Controller state transitions of interest

• interrupt_taken_instr_cross, debug_entry_if_instr_cross, pipe_flush_instr_cross - Interrupt taken/Debug mode entry/Pipe flush x instruction unstalled x instruction category

  • Three separate cross coverage groups: one for interrupt, debug and pipe flush.

  • Covers all instruction categories being interrupted/entering debug mode/flushing the pipeline both where this occurs during a stall and when it occurs just when they’ve unstalled.

• exception_stall_instr_cross - PMP exception x load/store error exception x instruction category x stall type x unstalled x irq pending x debug req

  • Large cross to cover all possibilities of combinations between interrupt, debug and exceptions for all instruction categories across all stall behaviours.

• pmp_iside_priv_bits_cross, pmp_iside2_priv_bits_cross, pmp_dside_priv_bits_cross, PMP regions x permissions x access fail/pass x privilege level

  • Three crosses, one for each PMP channel (instruction, instruction 2 and data).

• dummy_instr_config_cross - Dummy Instruction Type x Dummy Instruction Insertion Frequency to explore all possible configurations.

• rf_ecc_err_cross - ECC Error on Port A x ECC Error on Port B to explore all possible combinations of reported ECC errors.

• debug_req_dummy_instr_{if,id,wb}_stage_cross - The IF, ID/EX, or WB stage handles a dummy instruction while a debug request arrives.

• irq_pending_dummy_instr_{if,id,wb}_stage_cross - The IF, ID/EX, or WB stage handles a dummy instruction while an IRQ is pending.