Primitive Component: Packer

Overview

prim_packer is a module that receives partial writes then packs and creates full configurable width writes. It is one of a set of shared primitive modules available for use within OpenTitan as referred to in the Comportability Specification section on shared primitives.

Parameters

Name	type	Description
InW	int	Input data width
OutW	int	Output data width
EnProtection	bit	Check FI attack on position counter

Signal Interfaces

Name	In/Out	Description
valid_i	input	Input data available.
data_i[InW]	input	Input data.
mask_i[InW]	input	Input bit mask. Ones in the mask must be contiguous.
ready_o	output	Indicates if prim_packer is able to accept data.
valid_o	output	Indicates if output data is available.
data_o[OutW]	output	Output data.
mask_o[OutW]	output	Output bit mask.
ready_i	input	Output data can be drained.
flush_i	input	Send out stored data and clear state.
flush_done_o	output	Indicates flush operation is completed.
err_o	output	When EnProtection is set, the error is reported through this port. This signal is asynchronous to the datapath.

Theory of Operations

           /----------\
valid_i    |          |      valid_o
---------->|          |--------------->
data_i     | stacked  |       data_o
=====/====>| register |=======/=======>
  [InW]    |          |    [OutW]
mask_i     |          |       mask_o
=====/====>| InW+OutW |=======/=======>
ready_o    |----------|      ready_i
<----------|          |<---------------
           |          |
           \----------/

prim_packer accepts InW bits of data and bitmask signals. On a valid_i/ ready_o handshake, data_i is stored to internal registers and accumulated until OutW data has been gathered. In the normal case, mask_o will be a full width write ({OutW{1'b1}}). However, when flush_i is asserted, prim_packer attempts to drain out all remaining data in the internal storage. In this case, mask_o might be partial.

The internal register size is InW + OutW bits to safely store the incoming data and send outgoing data to the data_o port.

{ signal: [
  { name: 'valid_i',      wave: '01.01......0.'},
  { name: 'data_i[3:0]',  wave: 'x==x===.===x.', data:'0h 1h 2h 3h 4h 5h 6h 7h'},
  { name: 'mask_i[3:0]',  wave: 'x==x===.===x.', data:'Fh Fh Fh Fh Fh Fh Ch Ch'},
  { name: 'ready_o',      wave: '1.....01.....'},
  { name: 'valid_o',      wave: '0.10101..0.10'},
  { name: 'data_o[5:0]',  wave: 'x.=x=x=.=x.=x', data:'10h 08h 03h 15h 05h'},
  { name: 'mask_o[5:0]',  wave: 'x.=x=x=.=x.=x', data:'3Fh 3Fh 3Fh 3Fh 0Fh '},
  { name: 'ready_i',      wave: '1.....01.....'},
  { name: 'flush_i',      wave: '0..........10'},
  { name: 'flush_done_o', wave: '0..........10'},
  ],

  head:{
    text: 'prim_packer',
    tick: ['0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18    ']
  }
}

The above waveform shows the case of InW := 4 and OutW := 6. After the first transaction, prim_packer has 0h in the storage. When the second valid_i is asserted, it combines 0h and incoming data 1h and creates output 10h (6'b01_0000). The remaining 2'b00 is put into the internal storage from data_i[3:2]. The next transaction combines this and input data 2h to create 6'b00_1000.

prim_packer deasserts ready_o to indicate it cannot accept further data. ready_o is deasserted when ready_i is deasserted and there is insufficient internal storage available to store incoming data, as shown in cycle 6 above.

At cycle 9 and 10, mask_i is used to only load 2 bits of data into the packer each cycle. This is to show how the packer allows misaligned writes (smaller than InW) to be packed together.

At the end of the sequence, flush_i is asserted, and the remaining data is drained. In this case, mask_o isn’t full to indicate only partial data is available (6'b00_1111). flush_done_o is asserted as soon as the remaining data is drained.

prim_packer only supports packing to the right. To use prim_packer in a design requiring packing to the left (filling MSB first), the design needs to reverse the bit order (and in some cases, the byte order) before pushing to the packer, then reverse the data output.