sse2rvv

A C header file that converts Intel SSE intrinsics to RISC-V Vector intrinsic.

Introduction

sse2rvv is a translator of Intel SSE (Streaming SIMD Extensions) intrinsics to RISC-V Vector. This repository was initially created with the intention of making minimap2 work with RISC-V Vector intrinsics. The header file sse2rvv.h in this repository currently contains several of the functions provided in official <emmintrin.h> from Intel intrinsics

Due to the nature of RISC-V Vector registers having different VLEN depending on the architecture, for the purpose of this repository, we assume the system/simulator that uses this header file have VLEN of 128bits

Result

From this repository, I have demonstrated that:

sse2rvv can be used on application that requires Intel's intrinsic to be run on RISC-V platform that supports vector instruction.
Running minimap2 on RISC-V platform that utilizes sse2rvv reduces the instruction count by 2.67 in comparison to traditional vector to loop conversion approach.

Get Started

To test it out, we would need to have:

RISC-V GNU toolchain with RVV intrinsic

riscv-gnu-toolchain with rvv intrinsics enabled. Go to the Installation (Linux) section, and follow the build step there, with addition of the flag --with-arch=rv64gcv --with-abi=lp64d.

RISC-V ISA simulator

Spike is a RISC-V ISA simulator that can be used for our purpose. Follow the Build Steps section to get Spike on your machine.

RISC-V Proxy Kernel (pk)

We need a Proxy Kernel since I'm assuming this repository will be used for program that will be run in an Operating System in particular Linux distributions. Follow the Build Steps there, and for the configure part, you would use the flag --host=riscv64-unknown-linux-gnu --with-arch=rv64gcv. Remember to put the toolchain program that you obtained in RISC-V GNU toolchain with RVV intrinsic into your PATH.

How to run

Inside the directory tests, there are directories that contains a unit test for each Intel intrinsic implemented inside the sse2rvv.h. To run this unit tests on your machine, you would need to modify the tests/test.sh file, particularly the path to your RISC-V GNU toolchain programs, Spike, and riscv-pk. After you modified this to the right path, run ./test_all.sh in the tests directory, and see all the unit tests run and (hopefully) pass.

To get all the 3 programs above, we have provided a script called riscv_minimap2.sh, which will download and compile the RVV Toolchain, Spike, pk, and minimap2. In addition, it will also run minimap2 with a test data.

Usage

Put the file sse2rvv.h in to your source code directory.
Locate #include <emmintrin.h> in the code and replace them with #include "sse2rvv.h".
Put INIT_SSE_VL somewhere before the first Intel's intrinsic code. This is an important step, and if missed, would result in undeterministic behavior.

FeddrickAquino / sse2rvv