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Dynarmic Design Documentation

Dynarmic is a dynamic recompiler for the ARMv6K architecture. Future plans for dynarmic include support for other versions of the ARM architecture, having a interpreter mode, and adding support for other architectures.

Users of this library interact with it primarily through the interface provided in src/dynarmic/interface. Users specify how dynarmic's CPU core interacts with the rest of their system providing an implementation of the relevant UserCallbacks interface. Users setup the CPU state using member functions of Jit, then call Jit::Execute to start CPU execution. The callbacks defined on UserCallbacks may be called from dynamically generated code, so users of the library should not depend on the stack being in a walkable state for unwinding.

Dynarmic reads instructions from memory by calling UserCallbacks::MemoryReadCode. These instructions then pass through several stages:

  1. Decoding (Identifying what type of instruction it is and breaking it up into fields)
  2. Translation (Generation of high-level IR from the instruction)
  3. Optimization (Eliminiation of redundant microinstructions, other speed improvements)
  4. Emission (Generation of host-executable code into memory)
  5. Execution (Host CPU jumps to the start of emitted code and runs it)

Using the A32 frontend with the x64 backend as an example:

Decoder

The decoder is a double dispatch decoder. Each instruction is represented by a line in the relevant instruction table. Here is an example line from arm.h:

INST(&V::arm_ADC_imm,     "ADC (imm)",           "cccc0010101Snnnnddddrrrrvvvvvvvv")

(Details on this instruction can be found in section A8.8.1 of the ARMv7-A manual. This is encoding A1.)

The first argument to INST is the member function to call on the visitor. The second argument is a user-readable instruction name. The third argument is a bit-representation of the instruction.

Instruction Bit-Representation

Each character in the bitstring represents a bit. A 0 means that that bitposition must contain a zero. A 1 means that that bitposition must contain a one. A - means we don't care about the value at that bitposition. A string of the same character represents a field. In the above example, the first four bits cccc represent the four-bit-long cond field of the ARM Add with Carry (immediate) instruction.

The visitor would have to have a function named arm_ADC_imm with 6 arguments, one for each field (cccc, S, nnnn, dddd, rrrr, vvvvvvvv). If there is a mismatch of field number with argument number, a compile-time error results.

Translator

The translator is a visitor that uses the decoder to decode instructions. The translator generates IR code with the help of the IREmitter class. An example of a translation function follows:

bool ArmTranslatorVisitor::arm_ADC_imm(Cond cond, bool S, Reg n, Reg d, int rotate, Imm8 imm8) {
    u32 imm32 = ArmExpandImm(rotate, imm8);

    // ADC{S}<c> <Rd>, <Rn>, #<imm>

    if (ConditionPassed(cond)) {
        auto result = ir.AddWithCarry(ir.GetRegister(n), ir.Imm32(imm32), ir.GetCFlag());

        if (d == Reg::PC) {
            ASSERT(!S);
            ir.ALUWritePC(result.result);
            ir.SetTerm(IR::Term::ReturnToDispatch{});
            return false;
        }

        ir.SetRegister(d, result.result);
        if (S) {
            ir.SetNFlag(ir.MostSignificantBit(result.result));
            ir.SetZFlag(ir.IsZero(result.result));
            ir.SetCFlag(result.carry);
            ir.SetVFlag(result.overflow);
        }
    }

    return true;
}

where ir is an instance of the IRBuilder class. Each member function of the IRBuilder class constructs an IR microinstruction.

Intermediate Representation

Dynarmic uses an ordered SSA intermediate representation. It is very vaguely similar to those found in other similar projects like redream, nucleus, and xenia. Major differences are: (1) the abundance of context microinstructions whereas those projects generally only have two (load_context/store_context), (2) the explicit handling of flags as their own values, and (3) very different basic block edge handling.

The intention of the context microinstructions and explicit flag handling is to allow for future optimizations. The differences in the way edges are handled are a quirk of the current implementation and dynarmic will likely add a function analyser in the medium-term future.

Dynarmic's intermediate representation is typed. Each microinstruction may take zero or more arguments and may return zero or more arguments. A subset of the microinstructions available is documented below.

A complete list of microinstructions can be found in src/dynarmic/ir/opcodes.inc.

The below lists some commonly used microinstructions.

Immediate: Imm{U1,U8,U32,RegRef}

<u1> ImmU1(u1 value)
<u8> ImmU8(u8 value)
<u32> ImmU32(u32 value)
<RegRef> ImmRegRef(Arm::Reg gpr)

These instructions take a bool, u8 or u32 value and wraps it up in an IR node so that they can be used by the IR.

Context: {Get,Set}Register

<u32> GetRegister(<RegRef> reg)
<void> SetRegister(<RegRef> reg, <u32> value)

Gets and sets JitState::Reg[reg]. Note that SetRegister(Arm::Reg::R15, _) is disallowed by IRBuilder. Use {ALU,BX}WritePC instead.

Note that sequences like SetRegister(R4, _) followed by GetRegister(R4) are optimized away.

Context: {Get,Set}{N,Z,C,V}Flag

<u1> GetNFlag()
<void> SetNFlag(<u1> value)
<u1> GetZFlag()
<void> SetZFlag(<u1> value)
<u1> GetCFlag()
<void> SetCFlag(<u1> value)
<u1> GetVFlag()
<void> SetVFlag(<u1> value)

Gets and sets bits in JitState::Cpsr. Similarly to registers redundant get/sets are optimized away.

Context: BXWritePC

<void> BXWritePC(<u32> value)

This should probably be the last instruction in a translation block unless you're doing something fancy.

This microinstruction sets R15 and CPSR.T as appropriate.

Callback: CallSupervisor

<void> CallSupervisor(<u32> svc_imm32)

This should probably be the last instruction in a translation block unless you're doing something fancy.

Calculation: LastSignificant{Half,Byte}

<u16> LeastSignificantHalf(<u32> value)
<u8> LeastSignificantByte(<u32> value)

Extract a u16 and u8 respectively from a u32.

Calculation: MostSignificantBit, IsZero

<u1> MostSignificantBit(<u32> value)
<u1> IsZero(<u32> value)

These are used to implement ARM flags N and Z. These can often be optimized away by the backend into a host flag read.

Calculation: LogicalShiftLeft

(<u32> result, <u1> carry_out) LogicalShiftLeft(<u32> operand, <u8> shift_amount, <u1> carry_in)

Pseudocode:

    if shift_amount == 0:
        return (operand, carry_in)

    x = operand * (2 ** shift_amount)
    result = Bits<31,0>(x)
    carry_out = Bit<32>(x)

    return (result, carry_out)

This follows ARM semantics. Note shift_amount is not masked to 5 bits (like SHL does on x64).

Calculation: LogicalShiftRight

(<u32> result, <u1> carry_out) LogicalShiftLeft(<u32> operand, <u8> shift_amount, <u1> carry_in)

Pseudocode:

    if shift_amount == 0:
        return (operand, carry_in)

    x = ZeroExtend(operand, from_size: 32, to_size: shift_amount+32)
    result = Bits<shift_amount+31,shift_amount>(x)
    carry_out = Bit<shift_amount-1>(x)

    return (result, carry_out)

This follows ARM semantics. Note shift_amount is not masked to 5 bits (like SHR does on x64).

Calculation: ArithmeticShiftRight

(<u32> result, <u1> carry_out) ArithmeticShiftRight(<u32> operand, <u8> shift_amount, <u1> carry_in)

Pseudocode:

    if shift_amount == 0:
        return (operand, carry_in)

    x = SignExtend(operand, from_size: 32, to_size: shift_amount+32)
    result = Bits<shift_amount+31,shift_amount>(x)
    carry_out = Bit<shift_amount-1>(x)

    return (result, carry_out)

This follows ARM semantics. Note shift_amount is not masked to 5 bits (like SAR does on x64).

Calcuation: RotateRight

(<u32> result, <u1> carry_out) RotateRight(<u32> operand, <u8> shift_amount, <u1> carry_in)

Pseudocode:

    if shift_amount == 0:
        return (operand, carry_in)

    shift_amount %= 32
    result = (operand << shift_amount) | (operand >> (32 - shift_amount))
    carry_out = Bit<31>(result)

    return (result, carry_out)

Calculation: AddWithCarry

(<u32> result, <u1> carry_out, <u1> overflow) AddWithCarry(<u32> a, <u32> b, <u1> carry_in)

a + b + carry_in

Calculation: SubWithCarry

(<u32> result, <u1> carry_out, <u1> overflow) SubWithCarry(<u32> a, <u32> b, <u1> carry_in)

This has equivalent semantics to AddWithCarry(a, Not(b), carry_in).

a - b - !carry_in

Calculation: And

<u32> And(<u32> a, <u32> b)

Calculation: Eor

<u32> Eor(<u32> a, <u32> b)

Exclusive OR (i.e.: XOR)

Calculation: Or

<u32> Or(<u32> a, <u32> b)

Calculation: Not

<u32> Not(<u32> value)

Callback: {Read,Write}Memory{8,16,32,64}

<u8> ReadMemory8(<u32> vaddr)
<u8> ReadMemory16(<u32> vaddr)
<u8> ReadMemory32(<u32> vaddr)
<u8> ReadMemory64(<u32> vaddr)
<void> WriteMemory8(<u32> vaddr, <u8> value_to_store)
<void> WriteMemory16(<u32> vaddr, <u16> value_to_store)
<void> WriteMemory32(<u32> vaddr, <u32> value_to_store)
<void> WriteMemory64(<u32> vaddr, <u64> value_to_store)

Memory access.

Terminal: Interpret

SetTerm(IR::Term::Interpret{next})

This terminal instruction calls the interpreter, starting at next. The interpreter must interpret exactly one instruction.

Terminal: ReturnToDispatch

SetTerm(IR::Term::ReturnToDispatch{})

This terminal instruction returns control to the dispatcher. The dispatcher will use the value in R15 to determine what comes next.

Terminal: LinkBlock

SetTerm(IR::Term::LinkBlock{next})

This terminal instruction jumps to the basic block described by next if we have enough cycles remaining. If we do not have enough cycles remaining, we return to the dispatcher, which will return control to the host.

Terminal: PopRSBHint

SetTerm(IR::Term::PopRSBHint{})

This terminal instruction checks the top of the Return Stack Buffer against R15. If RSB lookup fails, control is returned to the dispatcher. This is an optimization for faster function calls. A backend that doesn't support this optimization or doesn't have a RSB may choose to implement this exactly as ReturnToDispatch.

Terminal: If

SetTerm(IR::Term::If{cond, term_then, term_else})

This terminal instruction conditionally executes one terminal or another depending on the run-time state of the ARM flags.

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