About add an A64FX cache control function into resctrl

[tan.shaopeng at fujitsu.com]

Hello


I'm Tan Shaopeng from Fujitsu Limited. 

I’m trying to implement Fujitsu A64FX’s cache related features. 
It is a cache partitioning function we called sector cache function 
that using the value of the tag that is upper 8 bits of the 64bit 
address and the value of the sector cache register to control virtual 
cache capacity of the L1D&L2 cache. 

A few days ago, when I sent a driver that realizes this function to 
ARM64 kernel community, Will Deacon and Arnd Bergmann suggested 
an idea to add the sector cache function of A64FX into resctrl. 
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-kernel/CAK8P3a2pFcNTw9NpRtQfYr7A5OcZ=As2kM0D_sbfFcGQ_J2Q+Q@mail.gmail.com/ 

Based on my study, I think the sector cache function of A64FX can be 
added into the allocation features of resctrl after James' resctrl 
rework has finished. But, in order to implement this function, 
more interfaces for resctrl are need. The details are as follow, 
and could you give me some advice? 

[Sector cache function] 
The sector cache function split cache into multiple sectors and 
control them separately. It is implemented on the L1D cache and 
L2 cache in the A64FX processor and can be controlled individually 
for L1D cache and L2 cache. A64FX has no L3 cache. Each L1D cache 
and L2 cache has 4 sectors. Which L1D sector is used is specified 
by the value of [57:56] bits of address, how many ways of sector 
are specified by the value of register (IMP_SCCR_L1_EL0). 
Which L2 sector is used is specified by the value of [56] bits of 
address, and how many ways of sector are specified by value of register 
(IMP_SCCR_ASSIGN_EL1, IMP_SCCR_SET0_L2_EL1, IMP_SCCR_SET1_L2_EL1). 

For more details of sector cache function, 
see A64FX HPC extension specification (1.2. Sector cache) in 
https://github.com/fujitsu/A64FX 

[Difference between resctrl(CAT) and this sector cache function] 
L2/L3 CAT (Cache Allocation Technology) enables the user to specify 
some physical partition of cache space that an application can fill. 
A64FX's L1D/L2 cache has 4 sectors and 16ways. This sector function 
enables a user to specify number of ways each sector uses. 
Therefore, for CAT it is enough to specify a cache portion for 
each cache_id (socket). On the other hand, sector cache needs to 
specify cache portion of each sector for each cache_id, and following 
extension to resctrl interface is needed to support sector cache. 

[Idear for A64FX sector cache function control interface (schemata file details)] 
L1:<cache_id0>=<cwbm>,<cwbm>,<cwbm>,<cwbm>;<cache_id1>=<cwbm>,<cwbm>,<cwbm>,<cwbm>;…  
L2:<cache_id0>=>=<cwbm>,<cwbm>,<cwbm>,<cwbm>;<cache_id1>=<cwbm>,<cwbm>,<cwbm>,<cwbm>;… 

・L1: Add a new interface to control the L1D cache. 
・<cwbm>,<cwbm>,<cwbm>,<cwbm>：Specify the number of ways for each sector. 
・cwbm：Specify the number of ways in each sector as a bitmap (percentage), 
  but the bitmap does not indicate the location of the cache. 
* In the sector cache function, L2 sector cache way setting register is 
  shared among PEs (Processor Element) in shared domain. If two PEs 
  which share L2 cache belongs to different resource groups, one resource 
  group's L2 setting will affect to other resource group's L2 setting. 
* Since A64FX does not support MPAM, it is not necessary to consider 
  how to switch between MPAM and sector cache function now. 

Some questions: 
1.I'm still studying about RDT, could you tell me whether RDT has 
  the similar mechanism with sector cache function? 
2.In RDT, L3 cache is shared among cores in socket. If two cores which 
  share L3 cache belongs to different resource groups, one resource 
  group's L3 setting will affect to other resource group's L3 setting? 
3.Is this approach acceptable? could you give me some advice? 


Best regards 
Tan Shaopeng