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RISC-V: Trim language around the CHERI ISA being a design space.
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CHERI-RISC-V's definition is more concrete with fewer alternatives
than when the specification was first written.  The only remaining
design space choice is 32-bit vs 64-bit which is probably not enough
to justify the remaining language.  This does still keep the idea of a
design space in the list of goals motivating the initial desire to
apply CHERI to RISC-V as that list is largely historical.
bsdjhb committed Aug 1, 2023
1 parent 3319e21 commit 4f8cf96
Showing 1 changed file with 0 additions and 30 deletions.
30 changes: 0 additions & 30 deletions chap-cheri-riscv.tex
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@@ -12,10 +12,6 @@ \chapter{The CHERI-RISC-V Instruction-Set Architecture}
and 64-bit RISC-V.
Wherever possible, CHERI-RISC-V implements the architecture-neutral concepts
described in Chapter~\ref{chap:architecture}.
We chose to design CHERI-RISC-V as a parameterizable instruction set that
includes several key design points that allow us to evaluate both
microarchitectural and architectural implications via side-by-side
experiments.
Detailed descriptions of specific capability-aware instructions can be found
in Chapter~\ref{chap:isaref-riscv}.

@@ -105,32 +101,6 @@ \subsection{Target RISC-V ISA Variants}
perhaps using an alternate scheme for permissions, can provide better
precision.

\subsection{CHERI-RISC-V is an ISA Design Space}

A key aim in CHERI-RISC-V is to allow experiments to be run comparing various
CHERI-related parameters: Are capabilities with respect to 32-bit or
64-bit virtual addresses? What are the impacts of various instruction-set
variations or microarchitectural optimizations? How does greater investment
of opcode space affect performance -- and what techniques, such as instruction
compression or different capability-aware modes, may impact this? How can
CHERI interact with other architectural specializations such as DMA and
heterogenous compute?
To answer these and other questions, we have designed CHERI-RISC-V as an ISA
design space, in which several key design dimensions are parameterized:

\begin{itemize}
\item Both 32-bit and 64-bit RISC-V are extended, with 64-bit and 128-bit
capabilities respectively.
\end{itemize}

With respect to all of these design dimensions, we intend that specific
instantiated microarchitectures, compiler targets, compiled operating systems,
and compiled software stacks support only one point in the space.
However, we hope that carefully parameterized hardware and software designs
will be able to target more than one point to allow side-by-side comparison
from the perspectives of hardware resource utilization, performance, security,
and compatibility.

\subsection{CHERI-RISC-V Strategy}

Wherever possible, we attempt to conform to the specific aesthetic of RISC-V,

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