Support more targets

[PhilippvK]

Currently we support two targets:

• etiss_pulpino (Might be renamed to etissvp or edaduino)
• host_x86

In the future we might support further architectures/simulator/devices e.g.:

• Architectures: ARM for comparions?
• Simulators: Spike (Instruction accurate), QEMU (not suitable for benchmarking?), OVPsim (proprietary)?
• Devices: Real hardware at some time?

[PhilippvK]

The main question is how we get useful metrics on these platforms. Getting an estimation of Cycle counts as well as tracing dynamic memory accesses would be optimal but is not feasible for most platforms.

[PhilippvK]

Here is a progress update:

Targets:

• [x] ETISS/Pulpino (RISCV)

  • [x] Add MLonMCU target

  • [x] Install dependencies automatically

  • [x] MLIF integration

  • Supported Features:

  • VEXT support

  • [x] Trace support

  • [x] GDBServer support

  • Supported Metrics:

  • [x] Estimated Cycles

  • [x] Static Memory (ROM/RAM)

  • [x] Dynamic Memory (Stack/Heap)

  • [x] MIPS

• [x] Host (x86)

  • [x] Add MLonMCU target

  • [x] Install dependencies automatically

  • [x] MLIF integration

  • Supported Features:

  • [x] GDBServer support

  • Supported Metrics:

  • [x] Runtime (Seconds)

• [x] Spike (RISCV)

  • [x] Add MLonMCU target

  • [x] Install dependencies automatically

  • [x] MLIF integration

  • Supported Features:

  • [x] VEXT support

  • GDBServer support

  • Supported Metrics:

  • [x] Estimated Cycles

  • [x] Static Memory (ROM/RAM)

• [ ] OVPSim (RISCV)

  • [x] Add MLonMCU target

  • [ ] Install dependencies automatically

  • [x] MLIF integration

  • Supported Features:

  • [x] VEXT support

  • [ ] Trace support?

  • [ ] GDBServer support

  • Supported Metrics:

  • [x] Estimated Cycles

  • [x] Static Memory (ROM/RAM)

  • [x] MIPS

• [ ] Corstone300 (ARM, Cortex-M55)

  • [x] Add MLonMCU target

  • [x] Install dependencies automatically

  • [x] MLIF integration

  • Supported Features:

  • [ ] EthosU support

  • [ ] Trace support?

  • GDBServer support

  • Supported Metrics:

  • [x] Estimated Cycles

  • [x] Static Memory (ROM/RAM)

[PhilippvK]

Now. That we have also non-ETISS targets available, it might be feasible to use a different simulator for the MicroTVM Autotuning flow. The Spike Proxy Kernel seems to also offer a UART interface which could be used for this. OVPsim seems to be the fastest simulator right now which would be desirable as autotuning is already very time consuming, but I have not yet found out if it supports a virtual UART.

[PhilippvK]

Here is an update regarding real-hardware support:

• Added Platform class as a "registry" for targets.
• Move all existing (manually implemented) targets into platform called MLIF (Name might change in the furture)
• Added new platform ESP-IDF with template project and compile/flash functionality
  • Added support for ESP32 and ESP32C3 using --platform espidf
  • The idf.py is currently NOT installed by MLonMCU -> Still have to decide if we want to manage such things.
  • Some features are not supported/tested yet: Validate data,...
• Using this API we might be able to easily support other platforms such as: PlatformIO, ArduinoCLI