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Release the constraint to enable e8mf8 in EEW=32 #1613
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that of the vector register width. In general, the requirement is to | ||
support LMUL {ge} SEW~MIN~/VLEN, where SEW~MIN~ is the narrowest supported | ||
SEW value and VLEN is the length of vector register. In the standard | ||
extensions, SEW~MIN~=8. For standard vector extensions with VLEN=32, |
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This changed text expresses different requirements than the original text and, in essence, is a material change to the ratified spec. For example, it no longer expresses a requirement for implementations with VLEN>64 to support fractional LMULs.
At the same time, this change seem sunnecessary since an implementation with VLEN>64 is already free to support e8mf8. The requirement expressed in the ELEN=32 example does not imply a limit on mf8 support when at least one full 8-bit element can be supported (i.e. with VLEN>32). It is just expressing minimum requirements.
And, in fact, the initial statement "Implementations must provide ..." effectively expesses a requirement that e8mf8 must be supported in VLEN>32 implementations since such implementations can hold at least one 8-bit element in a vector register. And the second sentence expresses a general minimum requirement - which the further sentences expand on with concrete examples.
Now I would agree that the first sentence could be clarified a little bit. For example saying "Implementations must provide fractional LMUL settings that allow at least one element of the narrowest supported type to occupy a fraction of a vector register corresponding to the ratio of the narrowest supported type's width to that of the largest supported type's width
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I'd echo what Greg said.
I do foresee the addition of 4-bit types, but that support would come in the form of new ISA extensions. Those ISA extensions might impose additional constraints on what values vtype
must support. It's neither necessary nor appropriate to impose those stricter requirements on all implementations.
Some other thoughts. Generic support for 4-bit types is probably not what's needed. Often we either want to perform mixed-precision arithmetic (e.g. 16b += 4b x 8b), which doesn't cleanly fit into this framework. Or we want to perform dot products, which do not rely on narrower SEW/LMUL. (Consider the vqdot proposal, which has both input EEW and output EEW the same; we perform 4-input dot products of 8b numbers into 32b accumulators using SEW=32.) In neither case is it clear that the proposed change is helpful.
I agree I updated this PR, and ask for another turn of review: clarify the constraints: not adding, but allowing the implementation of mf8 in EEW=32 when VLEN>=64. and adding the reason why |
e8mf8 type is allowed when VLEN>=64 and EEW=32, the common case of VLEN is VLEN>EEW, e.g. VLEN=64/128/256, and EEW=32. Signed-off-by: Jiuyang Liu <[email protected]>
Since T1 implemented
LMUL=1/8
inEEW=32
case. we submit this PR for consideration:making
e8mf8
type to be allowed whenVLEN>=64
andEEW=32
, the common case ofVLEN
isVLEN>>EEW
, e.g.VLEN=64/128/256
, andEEW=32
.On the other hand,
e8mf8
doesn't make sense in the architecture design that the pair of (e8mf8
,e16mf4
,e32mf2
) can always be replaced by (e8mf4
,e16mf2
,e32m1
).However, when specification allows
SEW_min=4
in the future,e4mf8
might find its place for some edge AI scenario.But at least, if we don't change the specification(to disallow
e8mf8
inEEW=32
), I think we still need to change the reason whye8mf8
not being allowed in the specification.