chipsalliance / chipsalliance/rocket-chip

TLArbiter lowestIndexFirst bug report

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build: scala/chisel/firrtl
Dominant language
Scala
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Description

Type of issue: bug report

Impact: lowestIndexFirst behaves wrong and threw firrtl exception under some circumstances.

the TileLink arbiter policy lowestIndexFirst's one liner implementation is as follows:https://github.com/chipsalliance/rocket-chip/blob/46c88b71056581a6bf2a0c4febd5ec3d768c6c59/src/main/scala/tilelink/Arbiter.scala#L16

val lowestIndexFirst: Policy = (width, valids, select) => ~(leftOR(valids) << 1)(width-1, 0)
The impl is actually straightforward, but when you call this policy using parameters:(width = 4, valilds = "b0001".U, select =false.B), the firrtl threw the following exception:
Exception in thread "main" firrtl.passes.CheckWidths$BitsWidthException: @[ChiselTester.scala 32:48]: [target ~PassThroughGenerator|PassThroughGenerator] High bit 3 in bits operator is larger than input width 3 in bits(_finalValid_T_4, 3, 0).
I traced the code and figured out this is due to the auto width triming of chisel operator <<, "b0001".U<<1 will give you an UInt of width 2 instead of 4. And when you want to get [3,0] part of a 2-bit UInt, the firrtl will complain.

I have no idea if this is a real functionl bug or there are actually some protection clause to prevent this behavior from actually triggering. I just read the implmentation code line by line and lack of knowledge holisticlly.
@terpstra
@hcook

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Research direction

Start in src/main/scala/tilelink/Arbiter.scala at the lowestIndexFirst policy and reproduce it with width 4, valids "b0001".U, and select false.B. Inspect the FIRRTL width error reported at ChiselTester.scala:32:48 and verify the policy no longer requests bits beyond the shifted value's width while preserving its intended behavior.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
scala
Domain
embedded-iot
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
48/100

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