[LLVMdev] Upstream PTX backend that uses target independent code generator if possible

[Che-Liang Chiou]

My implementation of predicated instructions is similar to ARM
backend. I traced ARM and PowerPC backend for reference.

If, David, you were saying a implementation of predication in LLVM IR,
I didn't do that.  It was partly because I was not (and is still not)
very familiar with LLVM's design; so I didn't know how to do that.

I agree what Micah said; LLVM's code generator has a vector splitting,
among many other reusable components.

Regards,
Che-Liang

On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 12:25 PM, Villmow, Micah <Micah.Villmow at amd.com> wrote:
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: llvmdev-bounces at cs.uiuc.edu [mailto:llvmdev-bounces at cs.uiuc.edu]
>> On Behalf Of David A. Greene
>> Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2010 12:02 PM
>> To: Che-Liang Chiou
>> Cc: llvmdev at cs.uiuc.edu
>> Subject: Re: [LLVMdev] Upstream PTX backend that uses target
>> independent code generator if possible
>>
>> Che-Liang Chiou <clchiou at gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> > I surfed their code, and it seems that they didn't use code
>> generator.
>> > That means there design should be similar to CBackend or CPPBackend.
>> > So I guess it can't generate some machine instructions like MAD,
>> > and there are some PTX instruction set features that are hard to
>> exploit
>> > if not using code generator.
>> >
>> > But I didn't study their code thoroughly, so I might be wrong about
>> this.
>>
>> I haven't had a chance to look at it yet either.
>>
>> >>> I have tested this backend to translate a work-efficient parallel
>> scan
>> >>> kernel (
>> http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GPUGems3/gpugems3_ch39.html
>> >>> ) into PTX code.  The generated PTX code was then executed on real
>> >>> hardware, and the result is correct.
>> >>
>> >> How much of the LLVM IR does this support?  What's missing?
>> > Have to add some intrinsics, calling conventions, and address spaces.
>> > I would say these are relatively small changes.
>>
>> Are you generating masks at all?  If so, how are you doing that?
>> Similarly to how the ARM backend does predicates (handling all the
>> representation, etc. in the target-specific codegen)?
>>
>> I've have been wanting to see predicates (vector and scalar) in the
>> LLVM IR for a long time.  Perhaps the PTX backend is an opportunity
>> to explore that.
> [Villmow, Micah] From looking at the llvmptxbackend, it does not fully support vector types.
> This in my perspective is one of the greatest benefits of the backend code-generator, automatic support
> for vector types in LLVM-IR that are not natively supported by the target machine via vector splitting.
>>
>>                            -Dave
>>
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