Overview & Philosophy

Underpinning FireSim is Golden Gate (MIDAS II), a FIRRTL-based compiler and C++ library, which is used to transform Chisel-generated RTL into a deterministic FPGA-accelerated simulator.

Golden Gate vs FPGA Prototyping

Key to understanding the design of Golden Gate, is understanding that Golden Gate-generated simulators are not FPGA prototypes. Unlike in a prototype, Golden Gate-generated simulators decouple the target-design clocks from all FPGA-host clocks (we say it is host-decoupled): one cycle in the target machine is simulated over a dynamically variable number FPGA clock cycles. In constrast, a conventional FPGA-prototype “emulates” the SoC by implementing the target directly in FPGA logic, with each FPGA-clock edge executing a clock edge of the SoC.

Why Use Golden Gate & FireSim

The host decoupling by Golden Gate-generated simulators enables:

  1. Deterministic simulation Golden Gate creates a closed simulation environment such that bugs in the target can be reproduced despite timing-differences (eg. DRAM refresh, PCI-E transport latency) in the underlying host. The simulators for the same target can be generated for different host-FPGAs but will maintain the same target behavior.

  2. FPGA-host optimizations Structures in ASIC RTL that map poorly to FPGA logic can be replaced with models that preserve the target RTL’s behavior, but take more host cycles to save resources. eg. A 5R, 3W-ported register file with a dual-ported BRAM over 4 cycles.

  3. Distributed simulation & software co-simulation Since models are decoupled from host time, it becomes much easier to host components of the simulator on multiple FPGAs, and on a host-CPU, while still preserving simulation determinism. This feature serves as the basis for building cycle-accurate scale-out systems with FireSim.

  4. FPGA-hosted, timing-faithful models of I/O devices Most simple FPGA-prototypes use FPGA-attached DRAM to model the target’s DRAM memory system. If the available memory system does not match that of the target, the target’s simulated performance will be artificially fast or slow. Host-decoupling permits writing detailed timing models that provide host-independent, deterministic timing of the target’s memory system, while still use FPGA-host resources like DRAM as a functional store.

Why Not Golden Gate

Ultimately, Golden Gate-generated simulators introduce overheads not present in an FPGA-prototype that may increase FPGA resource use, decrease fmax, and decrease overall simulation throughput [1] . Those looking to develop soft-cores or develop a complete FPGA-based platform with their own boards and I/O devices would be best served by implementing their design directly on an FPGA. For those looking to building a system around Rocket-Chip, we’d suggest looking at SiFive’s Freedom platform to start.

How is Host-Decoupling Implemented?

Host-decoupling in Golden Gate-generated simulators is implemented by decomposing the target machine into a dataflow graph of latency-insensitive models. As a user of FireSim, understanding this dataflow abstraction is essential for debugging your system and for developing your own software models and bridges. We describe it in the next section.