search

litex-hub / linux-on-litex-rocket

Run 64-bit Linux on LiteX + RocketChip
BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" License
181 stars 18 forks source link

is that possible to generate litex rocket with NVDLA? #20

Open 12ff7a6 opened 2 years ago

12ff7a6 commented 2 years ago

Hello, Chipyard support rocket with NVDLA, but this project only support VCU118. I want to implement this rocket with NVDLA project on other FPGA prototyping paltform. Which means I can't use Xilinx IPcores. So maybe litex open source IPs are good choice. Is that possible to generate litex rocket with NVDLA?

gsomlo commented 2 years ago

On Tue, Dec 28, 2021 at 09:51:13AM -0800, 12ff7a6 wrote:

Chipyard support rocket with NVDLA, but this project only support VCU118.

This project (a "computer" with a Rocket CPU and LiteX peripherals around it) supports a whole bunch of Xilinx and Lattice/ECP5 based development boards. I don't think the VCU118 is "officially" on that list (yet), but if you can build LiteX bitstream using --with-cpu rocket it should be possible to add support for it.

I want to implement this rocket with NVDLA project on other FPGA prototyping paltform. Which means I can't use Xilinx IPcores. So maybe litex open source IPs are good choice. Is that possible to generate litex rocket with NVDLA?

That said, I don't know how NVDLA ties into it -- it's not a specific development board, but rather some sort of ecosystem that one might be able to run on different bits of hardware. I might be wrong about that, this is the first time I've actually heard of NVDLA.

I'm only vaguely familiar with Chipyard, back when I was looking for a solution it seemed to be analogous to LiteX (i.e., provide a configurable set of peripherals one can place around Rocket to obtain a "computer"), but at the time had a much more limited set of physical development boards one could build it for, which did specifically not include Lattice ECP5 based ones. This may have changed recently, but I haven't kept up to date, so I really don't know what I'm talking about :)

Anyway, long story short, I don't think I understand the question, please clarify... :)

12ff7a6 commented 2 years ago

hi gsomlo, thank you for your reply. let me clarify my problem. NVDLA is short for Nvidia Deep Learning Accrelerator. https://github.com/nvdla. Some SoC Designs has included this NVDLA such as Chipyard(Rocket core & NVDLA) https://github.com/ucb-bar/chipyard or ESP(Ariane & NVDLA) https://github.com/sld-columbia/esp. Chipyard is using Chisel3 to generate RTL. I have already checked linux-on-litex-rocket and boot Rocket core on Arty A7 100T successfully, it seems linux-on-litex-rocket will first generate the RTLs(differnet configs) by using rocket-chip(so as Chipyard), then include those RTLs with some top levels. I wonder if I can plugin NVDLA while generate the RTLs? like modify the Chisel configs?

Chipyard and ESP are all using Xilinx IPcores, such as DDR3/4, SGMII, PLL and so on. But I want to implement Rocket core with NVDLA on Cadance Protium prototyping platform, which means I do not use Xilinx workflow and I can't use Xilinx IPcores.

I have 2 ideas,

  1. First generate RTLs by using Chipyard or ESP, then replace the Xilinx IPcores with Litex open source IPcores.
  2. Generate rocket core and NVDLA RTL by using linux-on-litex-rocket workflow.

Which one do you think is reasonable?