delay: add new package for cycle-accurate delays

This is implemented in inline assembly using machine.CPUFrequency() to
know how long a single CPU cycle takes. As long as it is called with a
constant duration, it should be fully inlined and all values can be
const-propagated resulting in very tight inline assembly.

For example, when I convert i2csoft to use this delay function, the
entire delay function compiles to something like this:

    8784:   movs    r6, #100
    8786:   mov     r0, r6
    8788:   nop
    878a:   nop
    878c:   nop
    878e:   nop
    8790:   nop
    8792:   subs    r0, #1
    8794:   bne     0x8788

That means that all the math to calculate the number of cycles is
entirely optimized away (in this case, to 100 loops).

I ran the example on a few boards to see how well it works:

| board                 | 100ms wait | CPU core
|-----------------------|------------|------
| microbit              | 121.6ms    | Cortex-M0 so it has 12% overhead
| circuitplay-express   | 100.1ms    | Cortex-M0+ so it is cycle accurate
| pico                  | 100.2ms    | Cortex-M0+
| pyportal              | 100.3ms    | Cortex-M4
| circuitplay-bluefruit | 125.8ms    | Cortex-M4
| esp8266               | 125.1ms    |

This shows that there is some loop overhead because of conservative
estimates, but note that even though there may be a 25% overhead, the
actual overhead per `delay.Sleep()` call is very small. It should be
good enough for software I2C at least, and can potentially be improved
in the future.
This commit is contained in:
Ayke van Laethem
2023-05-03 22:17:14 +02:00
committed by Ron Evans
parent b0c9f259dc
commit 9fdf0d657d
3 changed files with 128 additions and 0 deletions
+54
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#include <stdint.h>
#include <stdbool.h>
// Loop the given times, where one loop takes four CPU cycles.
bool tinygo_drivers_sleep(uint32_t cycles) {
// In this function, a [n] comment indicates the number of cycles an
// instruction or a set of instructions take. This is typically 1 for most
// arithmetic instructions, and a bit more for branches.
#if __ARM_ARCH_6M__ || __ARM_ARCH_7M__ || __ARM_ARCH_7EM__
// Inline assembly for Cortex-M0/M0+/M3/M4/M7.
// The Cortex-M0 (but not M0+) takes one more cycle, so is off by 12.5%.
// Others should be basically cycle-accurate (with a slight overhead to
// calculate the number of cycles). Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to
// be a preprocessor macro to detect the Cortex-M0 specifically (although we
// could rely on macros like NRF51).
// Each loop takes 8 cycles (5 nops, 1 sub, and 2 for the branch).
uint32_t loops = (cycles + 7) / 8;
__asm__ __volatile__(
"1:\n\t"
"nop\n\t" // [5] nops
"nop\n\t"
"nop\n\t"
"nop\n\t"
"nop\n\t"
"subs %[loops], #1\n\t" // [1]
"bne 1b" // [1-4], at least 2 cycles if taken
: [loops]"+r"(loops)
);
return true;
#elif __XTENSA__
// Inline assembly for Xtensa.
// I don't know exactly how many cycles a branch takes, so I've taken a
// conservative guess and assume it takes only one cycle. In practice, it's
// probably more than that.
uint32_t loops = (cycles + 7) / 8;
__asm__ __volatile__(
"1:\n\t"
"nop\n\t" // [6] nops
"nop\n\t"
"nop\n\t"
"nop\n\t"
"nop\n\t"
"nop\n\t"
"addi %[loops], %[loops], -1\n\t" // [1]
"bnez %[loops], 1b" // [1?]
: [loops]"+r"(loops)
);
return true;
#else
// Unknown architecture, so fall back to time.Sleep.
return false;
#endif
}
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package delay
import (
"machine"
"time"
)
/*
#include <stdint.h>
#include <stdbool.h>
bool tinygo_drivers_sleep(uint32_t ticks);
*/
import "C"
// Sleep for a very precise short duration by busy-waiting for the given time.
// This is not an efficient way to sleep: it will needlessly burn cycles while
// sleeping. But it is useful for sleeping for a very short duration, for
// example for bit-banged protocols.
//
// Longer durations (longer than a few milliseconds) will be handled by calling
// time.Sleep instead.
//
// This function should be called with a constant duration value, in which case
// the call will typically be fully inlined and only take up around nine
// instructions for the entire loop.
//
//go:inline
func Sleep(duration time.Duration) {
if time.Duration(uint32(duration)&0xff_ffff) != duration {
// This is a long duration (more than 16ms) which shouldn't be done by
// busy-waiting.
time.Sleep(duration)
return
}
// Calculate the number of cycles we should sleep:
// cycles = duration * freq / 1e9
// Avoiding a 64-bit division:
// cycles = duration * (freq/1000_000) / 1000
//
// This assumes:
// * The CPU frequency is a constant and can trivially be
// const-propagated, therefore the divide by 1000_000 is done at compile
// time.
// * The CPU frequency is a multiple of 1000_000, which is true for most
// chips (examples: 16MHz, 48MHz, 120MHz, etc).
// * The division by 1000 can be done efficiently (Cortex-M3 and up), or
// can be fully const-propagated.
// * The CPU frequency is lower than 256MHz. If it is higher, long sleep
// times (1-16ms) may not work correctly.
cycles := uint32(duration) * (machine.CPUFrequency() / 1000_000) / 1000
slept := C.tinygo_drivers_sleep(cycles)
if !slept {
// Fallback for platforms without inline assembly support.
time.Sleep(duration)
}
}
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package main
import (
"time"
"tinygo.org/x/drivers/delay"
)
func main() {
time.Sleep(time.Second) // wait for a serial console
start := time.Now()
for i := 0; i < 2000; i++ {
delay.Sleep(50 * time.Microsecond)
}
duration := time.Since(start)
println("sleep of 2000*50µs (100ms) took:", duration.String())
}