Figure 2 Ibex Pipeline

# Pipeline Details¶

Ibex has a 2-stage pipeline, the 2 stages are:

Instruction Fetch (IF)

Fetches instructions from memory via a prefetch buffer, capable of fetching 1 instruction per cycle if the instruction side memory system allows. See Instruction Fetch for details.

Instruction Decode and Execute (ID/EX)

Decodes fetched instruction and immediately executes it, register read and write all occurs in this stage. Multi-cycle instructions will stall this stage until they are complete See Instruction Decode and Execute for details.

All instructions require two cycles minimum to pass down the pipeline. One cycle in the IF stage and one in the ID/EX stage. Not all instructions can complete in the ID/EX stage in one cycle so will stall there until they complete. This means the maximum IPC (Instructions per Cycle) Ibex can achieve is 1 when multi-cycle instructions aren’t used. See Multi- and Single-Cycle Instructions below for the details.

## Third Pipeline Stage¶

Ibex can be configured to have a third pipeline stage (Writeback) which has major effects on performance and instruction behaviour. This feature is EXPERIMENTAL and the details of its impact are not yet documented here. All of the information presented below applies only to the two stage pipeline provided in the default configurations.

## Multi- and Single-Cycle Instructions¶

In the table below when an instruction stalls for X cycles X + 1 cycles pass before a new instruction enters the ID/EX stage. Some instructions stall for a variable time, this is indicated as a range e.g. 1 - N means the instruction stalls a minimum of 1 cycle with an indeterminate maximum cycles. Read the description for more information.

Instruction Type

Stall Cycles

Description

Integer Computational

0

Integer Computational Instructions are defined in the RISCV-V RV32I Base Integer Instruction Set.

CSR Access

0

CSR Access Instruction are defined in ‘Zicsr’ of the RISC-V specification.

1 - N

Both loads and stores stall for at least one cycle to await a response. For loads this response is the load data (which is written directly to the register file the same cycle it is received). For stores this is whether an error was seen or not. The longer the data side memory interface takes to receive a response the longer loads and stores will stall.

Multiplication

0/1 (Single-Cycle Multiplier)

2/3 (Fast Multi-Cycle Multiplier)

clog2(op_b)/32 (Slow Multi-Cycle Multiplier)

0 for MUL, 1 for MULH.

2 for MUL, 3 for MULH.

clog2(op_b) for MUL, 32 for MULH. See details in Multiplier/Divider Block (MULT/DIV).

Division

Remainder

1 or 37

1 stall cycle if divide by 0, otherwise full long division. See details in Multiplier/Divider Block (MULT/DIV)

Jump

1 - N

Minimum one cycle stall to flush the prefetch counter and begin fetching from the new Program Counter (PC). The new PC request will appear on the instruction-side memory interface the same cycle the jump instruction enters ID/EX. The longer the instruction-side memory interface takes to receive data the longer the jump will stall.

Branch (Not-Taken)

0

Any branch where the condition is not met will not stall.

Branch (Taken)

2 - N

1 - N (Branch Target ALU enabled)

Any branch where the condition is met will stall for 2 cycles as in the first cycle the branch is in ID/EX the ALU is used to calculate the branch condition. The following cycle the ALU is used again to calculate the branch target where it proceeds as Jump does above (Flush IF stage and prefetch buffer, new PC on instruction-side memory interface the same cycle it is calculated). The longer the instruction-side memory interface takes to receive data the longer the branch will stall. With the parameter BranchTargetALU set to 1 a separate ALU calculates the branch target simultaneously to calculating the branch condition with the main ALU so 1 less stall cycle is required.

Instruction Fence

1 - N

The FENCE.I instruction as defined in ‘Zifencei’ of the RISC-V specification. Internally it is implemented as a jump (which does the required flushing) so it has the same stall characteristics (see above).