User Guide for AMDGPU Backend

Introduction

The AMDGPU backend provides ISA code generation for AMD GPUs, starting with the R600 family up until the current GCN families. It lives in the lib/Target/AMDGPU directory.

LLVM

Target Triples

Use the clang -target <Architecture>-<Vendor>-<OS>-<Environment> option to specify the target triple:

AMDGPU Target Triples

Architecture	Vendor	OS	Environment
r600	amd	<empty>	<empty>
amdgcn	amd	<empty>	<empty>
amdgcn	amd	amdhsa	<empty>
amdgcn	amd	amdhsa	opencl
amdgcn	amd	amdhsa	amdgizcl
amdgcn	amd	amdhsa	amdgiz
amdgcn	amd	amdhsa	hcc

r600-amd--

Supports AMD GPUs HD2XXX-HD6XXX for graphics and compute shaders executed on the MESA runtime.

amdgcn-amd--

Supports AMD GPUs GCN 6 onwards for graphics and compute shaders executed on the MESA runtime.

amdgcn-amd-amdhsa-

Supports AMD GCN GPUs GFX6 onwards for compute kernels executed on HSA [HSA] compatible runtimes such as AMD’s ROCm [AMD-ROCm].

amdgcn-amd-amdhsa-opencl

Supports AMD GCN GPUs GFX6 onwards for OpenCL compute kernels executed on HSA [HSA] compatible runtimes such as AMD’s ROCm [AMD-ROCm]. See OpenCL.

amdgcn-amd-amdhsa-amdgizcl

Same as amdgcn-amd-amdhsa-opencl except a different address space mapping is used (see Address Spaces).

amdgcn-amd-amdhsa-amdgiz

Same as amdgcn-amd-amdhsa- except a different address space mapping is used (see Address Spaces).

amdgcn-amd-amdhsa-hcc

Supports AMD GCN GPUs GFX6 onwards for AMD HC language compute kernels executed on HSA [HSA] compatible runtimes such as AMD’s ROCm [AMD-ROCm]. See HCC.

Processors

Use the clang -mcpu <Processor> option to specify the AMD GPU processor. The names from both the Processor and Alternative Processor can be used.

AMDGPU Processors

Processor	Alternative Processor	Target Triple Architecture	dGPU/ APU	Runtime Support	Example Products
R600 [AMD-R6xx]
r600		r600	dGPU
r630		r600	dGPU
rs880		r600	dGPU
rv670		r600	dGPU
R700 [AMD-R7xx]
rv710		r600	dGPU
rv730		r600	dGPU
rv770		r600	dGPU
Evergreen [AMD-Evergreen]
cedar		r600	dGPU
redwood		r600	dGPU
sumo		r600	dGPU
juniper		r600	dGPU
cypress		r600	dGPU
Northern Islands [AMD-Cayman-Trinity]
barts		r600	dGPU
turks		r600	dGPU
caicos		r600	dGPU
cayman		r600	dGPU
GCN GFX6 (Southern Islands (SI)) [AMD-Souther-Islands]
gfx600	SI tahiti	amdgcn	dGPU
gfx601	pitcairn verde oland hainan	amdgcn	dGPU
GCN GFX7 (Sea Islands (CI)) [AMD-Sea-Islands]
gfx700	bonaire	amdgcn	dGPU		Radeon HD 7790 Radeon HD 8770 R7 260 R7 260X
	kaveri	amdgcn	APU		A6-7000 A6 Pro-7050B A8-7100 A8 Pro-7150B A10-7300 A10 Pro-7350B FX-7500 A8-7200P A10-7400P FX-7600P
gfx701	hawaii	amdgcn	dGPU	ROCm	FirePro W8100 FirePro W9100 FirePro S9150 FirePro S9170
gfx702			dGPU	ROCm	Radeon R9 290 Radeon R9 290x Radeon R390 Radeon R390x
gfx703	kabini mullins	amdgcn	APU		E1-2100 E1-2200 E1-2500 E2-3000 E2-3800 A4-5000 A4-5100 A6-5200 A4 Pro-3340B
GCN GFX8 (Volcanic Islands (VI)) [AMD-Volcanic-Islands]
gfx800	iceland	amdgcn	dGPU		FirePro S7150 FirePro S7100 FirePro W7100 Radeon R285 Radeon R9 380 Radeon R9 385 Mobile FirePro M7170
gfx801	carrizo	amdgcn	APU		A6-8500P Pro A6-8500B A8-8600P Pro A8-8600B FX-8800P Pro A12-8800B
		amdgcn	APU	ROCm	A10-8700P Pro A10-8700B A10-8780P
		amdgcn	APU		A10-9600P A10-9630P A12-9700P A12-9730P FX-9800P FX-9830P
		amdgcn	APU		E2-9010 A6-9210 A9-9410
gfx802	tonga	amdgcn	dGPU	ROCm	Same as gfx800
gfx803	fiji	amdgcn	dGPU	ROCm	Radeon R9 Nano Radeon R9 Fury Radeon R9 FuryX Radeon Pro Duo FirePro S9300x2
	polaris10	amdgcn	dGPU	ROCm	Radeon RX 470 Radeon RX 480
	polaris11	amdgcn	dGPU	ROCm	Radeon RX 460
gfx804		amdgcn	dGPU		Same as gfx803
gfx810	stoney	amdgcn	APU
GCN GFX9
gfx900		amdgcn	dGPU		Radeon Vega Frontier Edition
gfx901		amdgcn	dGPU	ROCm	Same as gfx900 except XNACK is enabled
gfx902		amdgcn	APU		TBA
gfx903		amdgcn	APU		Same as gfx902 except XNACK is enabled

Address Spaces

The AMDGPU backend uses the following address space mappings.

The memory space names used in the table, aside from the region memory space, is from the OpenCL standard.

LLVM Address Space number is used throughout LLVM (for example, in LLVM IR).

Address Space Mapping

LLVM Address Space	Memory Space
	Current Default	amdgiz/amdgizcl	hcc	Future Default
0	Private (Scratch)	Generic (Flat)	Generic (Flat)	Generic (Flat)
1	Global	Global	Global	Global
2	Constant	Constant	Constant	Region (GDS)
3	Local (group/LDS)	Local (group/LDS)	Local (group/LDS)	Local (group/LDS)
4	Generic (Flat)	Region (GDS)	Region (GDS)	Constant
5	Region (GDS)	Private (Scratch)	Private (Scratch)	Private (Scratch)

Current Default

This is the current default address space mapping used for all languages except hcc. This will shortly be deprecated.

amdgiz/amdgizcl

This is the current address space mapping used when amdgiz or amdgizcl is specified as the target triple environment value.

hcc

This is the current address space mapping used when hcc is specified as the target triple environment value.This will shortly be deprecated.

Future Default

This will shortly be the only address space mapping for all languages using AMDGPU backend.

Memory Scopes

This section provides LLVM memory synchronization scopes supported by the AMDGPU backend memory model when the target triple OS is amdhsa (see Memory Model and Target Triples).

The memory model supported is based on the HSA memory model [HSA] which is based in turn on HRF-indirect with scope inclusion [HRF]. The happens-before relation is transitive over the synchonizes-with relation independent of scope, and synchonizes-with allows the memory scope instances to be inclusive (see table AMDHSA LLVM Sync Scopes for AMDHSA).

This is different to the OpenCL [OpenCL] memory model which does not have scope inclusion and requires the memory scopes to exactly match. However, this is conservatively correct for OpenCL.

AMDHSA LLVM Sync Scopes for AMDHSA

LLVM Sync Scope	Description
none	The default: system. Synchronizes with, and participates in modification and seq_cst total orderings with, other operations (except image operations) for all address spaces (except private, or generic that accesses private) provided the other operation’s sync scope is: system. agent and executed by a thread on the same agent. workgroup and executed by a thread in the same workgroup. wavefront and executed by a thread in the same wavefront.
agent	Synchronizes with, and participates in modification and seq_cst total orderings with, other operations (except image operations) for all address spaces (except private, or generic that accesses private) provided the other operation’s sync scope is: system or agent and executed by a thread on the same agent. workgroup and executed by a thread in the same workgroup. wavefront and executed by a thread in the same wavefront.
workgroup	Synchronizes with, and participates in modification and seq_cst total orderings with, other operations (except image operations) for all address spaces (except private, or generic that accesses private) provided the other operation’s sync scope is: system, agent or workgroup and executed by a thread in the same workgroup. wavefront and executed by a thread in the same wavefront.
wavefront	Synchronizes with, and participates in modification and seq_cst total orderings with, other operations (except image operations) for all address spaces (except private, or generic that accesses private) provided the other operation’s sync scope is: system, agent, workgroup or wavefront and executed by a thread in the same wavefront.
singlethread	Only synchronizes with, and participates in modification and seq_cst total orderings with, other operations (except image operations) running in the same thread for all address spaces (for example, in signal handlers).

AMDGPU Intrinsics

The AMDGPU backend implements the following intrinsics.

This section is WIP.

Code Object

The AMDGPU backend generates a standard ELF [ELF] relocatable code object that can be linked by lld to produce a standard ELF shared code object which can be loaded and executed on an AMDGPU target.

Header

The AMDGPU backend uses the following ELF header:

AMDGPU ELF Header

Field	Value
e_ident[EI_CLASS]	ELFCLASS64
e_ident[EI_DATA]	ELFDATA2LSB
e_ident[EI_OSABI]	ELFOSABI_AMDGPU_HSA
e_ident[EI_ABIVERSION]	ELFABIVERSION_AMDGPU_HSA
e_type	ET_REL or ET_DYN
e_machine	EM_AMDGPU
e_entry	0
e_flags	0

AMDGPU ELF Header Enumeration Values

Name	Value
EM_AMDGPU	224
ELFOSABI_AMDGPU_HSA	64
ELFABIVERSION_AMDGPU_HSA	1

e_ident[EI_CLASS]

The ELF class is always ELFCLASS64. The AMDGPU backend only supports 64 bit applications.

e_ident[EI_DATA]

All AMDGPU targets use ELFDATA2LSB for little-endian byte ordering.

e_ident[EI_OSABI]

The AMD GPU architecture specific OS ABI of ELFOSABI_AMDGPU_HSA is used to specify that the code object conforms to the AMD HSA runtime ABI [HSA].

e_ident[EI_ABIVERSION]

The AMD GPU architecture specific OS ABI version of ELFABIVERSION_AMDGPU_HSA is used to specify the version of AMD HSA runtime ABI to which the code object conforms.

e_type

Can be one of the following values:

ET_REL

The type produced by the AMD GPU backend compiler as it is relocatable code object.

ET_DYN

The type produced by the linker as it is a shared code object.

The AMD HSA runtime loader requires a ET_DYN code object.

e_machine

The value EM_AMDGPU is used for the machine for all members of the AMD GPU architecture family. The specific member is specified in the NT_AMD_AMDGPU_ISA entry in the .note section (see Note Records).

e_entry

The entry point is 0 as the entry points for individual kernels must be selected in order to invoke them through AQL packets.

e_flags

The value is 0 as no flags are used.

Sections

An AMDGPU target ELF code object has the standard ELF sections which include:

AMDGPU ELF Sections

Name	Type	Attributes
.bss	SHT_NOBITS	SHF_ALLOC + SHF_WRITE
.data	SHT_PROGBITS	SHF_ALLOC + SHF_WRITE
.debug_*	SHT_PROGBITS	none
.dynamic	SHT_DYNAMIC	SHF_ALLOC
.dynstr	SHT_PROGBITS	SHF_ALLOC
.dynsym	SHT_PROGBITS	SHF_ALLOC
.got	SHT_PROGBITS	SHF_ALLOC + SHF_WRITE
.hash	SHT_HASH	SHF_ALLOC
.note	SHT_NOTE	none
.relaname	SHT_RELA	none
.rela.dyn	SHT_RELA	none
.rodata	SHT_PROGBITS	SHF_ALLOC
.shstrtab	SHT_STRTAB	none
.strtab	SHT_STRTAB	none
.symtab	SHT_SYMTAB	none
.text	SHT_PROGBITS	SHF_ALLOC + SHF_EXECINSTR

These sections have their standard meanings (see [ELF]) and are only generated if needed.

.debug*

The standard DWARF sections. See DWARF for information on the DWARF produced by the AMDGPU backend.

.dynamic, .dynstr, .dynstr, .hash

The standard sections used by a dynamic loader.

.note

See Note Records for the note records supported by the AMDGPU backend.

.relaname, .rela.dyn

For relocatable code objects, name is the name of the section that the relocation records apply. For example, .rela.text is the section name for relocation records associated with the .text section.

For linked shared code objects, .rela.dyn contains all the relocation records from each of the relocatable code object’s .relaname sections.

See Relocation Records for the relocation records supported by the AMDGPU backend.

.text

The executable machine code for the kernels and functions they call. Generated as position independent code. See Code Conventions for information on conventions used in the isa generation.

Note Records

As required by ELFCLASS64, minimal zero byte padding must be generated after the name field to ensure the desc field is 4 byte aligned. In addition, minimal zero byte padding must be generated to ensure the desc field size is a multiple of 4 bytes. The sh_addralign field of the .note section must be at least 4 to indicate at least 8 byte alignment.

The AMDGPU backend code object uses the following ELF note records in the .note section. The Description column specifies the layout of the note record’s desc field. All fields are consecutive bytes. Note records with variable size strings have a corresponding *_size field that specifies the number of bytes, including the terminating null character, in the string. The string(s) come immediately after the preceding fields.

Additional note records can be present.

AMDGPU ELF Note Records

Name	Type	Description
“AMD”	NT_AMD_AMDGPU_METADATA	<metadata null terminated string>
“AMD”	NT_AMD_AMDGPU_ISA	<isa name null terminated string>

AMDGPU ELF Note Record Enumeration Values

Name	Value
reserved	0-9
NT_AMD_AMDGPU_METADATA	10
NT_AMD_AMDGPU_ISA	11

NT_AMD_AMDGPU_ISA

Specifies the instruction set architecture used by the machine code contained in the code object.

This note record is required for code objects containing machine code for processors matching the amdgcn architecture in table Processors.

The null terminated string has the following syntax:

architecture-vendor-os-environment-processor

where:

architecture

The architecture from table AMDGPU Target Triples.

This is always amdgcn when the target triple OS is amdhsa (see Target Triples).

vendor

The vendor from table AMDGPU Target Triples.

For the AMDGPU backend this is always amd.

os

The OS from table AMDGPU Target Triples.

environment

An environment from table AMDGPU Target Triples, or blank if the environment has no affect on the execution of the code object.

For the AMDGPU backend this is currently always blank.

processor

The processor from table AMDGPU Processors.

For example:

amdgcn-amd-amdhsa--gfx901

NT_AMD_AMDGPU_METADATA

Specifies extensible metadata associated with the code object. See Code Object Metadata for the syntax of the code object metadata string.

This note record is required and must contain the minimum information necessary to support the ROCM kernel queries. For example, the segment sizes needed in a dispatch packet. In addition, a high level language runtime may require other information to be included. For example, the AMD OpenCL runtime records kernel argument information.

Code Object Metadata

The code object metadata is specified by the NT_AMD_AMDHSA_METADATA note record (see Note Records).

The metadata is specified as a YAML formatted string (see [YAML] and YAML I/O).

The metadata is represented as a single YAML document comprised of the mapping defined in table AMDHSA Code Object Metadata Mapping and referenced tables.

For boolean values, the string values of false and true are used for false and true respectively.

Additional information can be added to the mappings. To avoid conflicts, any non-AMD key names should be prefixed by “vendor-name.”.

AMDHSA Code Object Metadata Mapping

String Key	Value Type	Required?	Description
“Version”	sequence of 2 integers	Required	The first integer is the major version. Currently 1. The second integer is the minor version. Currently 0.
“Printf”	sequence of strings		Each string is encoded information about a printf function call. The encoded information is organized as fields separated by colon (‘:’): ID:N:S[0]:S[1]:...:S[N-1]:FormatString where: ID A 32 bit integer as a unique id for each printf function call N A 32 bit integer equal to the number of arguments of printf function call minus 1 S[i] (where i = 0, 1, … , N-1) 32 bit integers for the size in bytes of the i-th FormatString argument of the printf function call FormatString The format string passed to the printf function call.
“Kernels”	sequence of mapping	Required	Sequence of the mappings for each kernel in the code object. See AMDHSA Code Object Kernel Metadata Mapping for the definition of the mapping.

AMDHSA Code Object Kernel Metadata Mapping

String Key	Value Type	Required?	Description
“Name”	string	Required	Source name of the kernel.
“SymbolName”	string	Required	Name of the kernel descriptor ELF symbol.
“Language”	string		Source language of the kernel. Values include: “OpenCL C” “OpenCL C++” “HCC” “OpenMP”
“LanguageVersion”	sequence of 2 integers		The first integer is the major version. The second integer is the minor version.
“Attrs”	mapping		Mapping of kernel attributes. See AMDHSA Code Object Kernel Attribute Metadata Mapping for the mapping definition.
“Arguments”	sequence of mapping		Sequence of mappings of the kernel arguments. See AMDHSA Code Object Kernel Argument Metadata Mapping for the definition of the mapping.
“CodeProps”	mapping		Mapping of properties related to the kernel code. See AMDHSA Code Object Kernel Code Properties Metadata Mapping for the mapping definition.
“DebugProps”	mapping		Mapping of properties related to the kernel debugging. See AMDHSA Code Object Kernel Debug Properties Metadata Mapping for the mapping definition.

AMDHSA Code Object Kernel Attribute Metadata Mapping

String Key	Value Type	Required?	Description
“ReqdWorkGroupSize”	sequence of 3 integers		The dispatch work-group size X, Y, Z must correspond to the specified values. Corresponds to the OpenCL reqd_work_group_size attribute.
“WorkGroupSizeHint”	sequence of 3 integers		The dispatch work-group size X, Y, Z is likely to be the specified values. Corresponds to the OpenCL work_group_size_hint attribute.
“VecTypeHint”	string		The name of a scalar or vector type. Corresponds to the OpenCL vec_type_hint attribute.

AMDHSA Code Object Kernel Argument Metadata Mapping

String Key	Value Type	Required?	Description
“Name”	string		Kernel argument name.
“TypeName”	string		Kernel argument type name.
“Size”	integer	Required	Kernel argument size in bytes.
“Align”	integer	Required	Kernel argument alignment in bytes. Must be a power of two.
“ValueKind”	string	Required	Kernel argument kind that specifies how to set up the corresponding argument. Values include: “ByValue” The argument is copied directly into the kernarg. “GlobalBuffer” A global address space pointer to the buffer data is passed in the kernarg. “DynamicSharedPointer” A group address space pointer to dynamically allocated LDS is passed in the kernarg. “Sampler” A global address space pointer to a S# is passed in the kernarg. “Image” A global address space pointer to a T# is passed in the kernarg. “Pipe” A global address space pointer to an OpenCL pipe is passed in the kernarg. “Queue” A global address space pointer to an OpenCL device enqueue queue is passed in the kernarg. “HiddenGlobalOffsetX” The OpenCL grid dispatch global offset for the X dimension is passed in the kernarg. “HiddenGlobalOffsetY” The OpenCL grid dispatch global offset for the Y dimension is passed in the kernarg. “HiddenGlobalOffsetZ” The OpenCL grid dispatch global offset for the Z dimension is passed in the kernarg. “HiddenNone” An argument that is not used by the kernel. Space needs to be left for it, but it does not need to be set up. “HiddenPrintfBuffer” A global address space pointer to the runtime printf buffer is passed in kernarg. “HiddenDefaultQueue” A global address space pointer to the OpenCL device enqueue queue that should be used by the kernel by default is passed in the kernarg. “HiddenCompletionAction” TBD
“ValueType”	string	Required	Kernel argument value type. Only present if “ValueKind” is “ByValue”. For vector data types, the value is for the element type. Values include: “Struct” “I8” “U8” “I16” “U16” “F16” “I32” “U32” “F32” “I64” “U64” “F64”
“PointeeAlign”	integer		Alignment in bytes of pointee type for pointer type kernel argument. Must be a power of 2. Only present if “ValueKind” is “DynamicSharedPointer”.
“AddrSpaceQual”	string		Kernel argument address space qualifier. Only present if “ValueKind” is “GlobalBuffer” or “DynamicSharedPointer”. Values are: “Private” “Global” “Constant” “Local” “Generic” “Region”
“AccQual”	string		Kernel argument access qualifier. Only present if “ValueKind” is “Image” or “Pipe”. Values are: “ReadOnly” “WriteOnly” “ReadWrite”
“ActualAcc”	string		The actual memory accesses performed by the kernel on the kernel argument. Only present if “ValueKind” is “GlobalBuffer”, “Image”, or “Pipe”. This may be more restrictive than indicated by “AccQual” to reflect what the kernel actual does. If not present then the runtime must assume what is implied by “AccQual” and “IsConst”. Values are: “ReadOnly” “WriteOnly” “ReadWrite”
“IsConst”	boolean		Indicates if the kernel argument is const qualified. Only present if “ValueKind” is “GlobalBuffer”.
“IsRestrict”	boolean		Indicates if the kernel argument is restrict qualified. Only present if “ValueKind” is “GlobalBuffer”.
“IsVolatile”	boolean		Indicates if the kernel argument is volatile qualified. Only present if “ValueKind” is “GlobalBuffer”.
“IsPipe”	boolean		Indicates if the kernel argument is pipe qualified. Only present if “ValueKind” is “Pipe”.

AMDHSA Code Object Kernel Code Properties Metadata Mapping

String Key	Value Type	Required?	Description
“KernargSegmentSize”	integer	Required	The size in bytes of the kernarg segment that holds the values of the arguments to the kernel.
“GroupSegmentFixedSize”	integer	Required	The amount of group segment memory required by a work-group in bytes. This does not include any dynamically allocated group segment memory that may be added when the kernel is dispatched.
“PrivateSegmentFixedSize”	integer	Required	The amount of fixed private address space memory required for a work-item in bytes. If IsDynamicCallstack is 1 then additional space must be added to this value for the call stack.
“KernargSegmentAlign”	integer	Required	The maximum byte alignment of arguments in the kernarg segment. Must be a power of 2.
“WavefrontSize”	integer	Required	Wavefront size. Must be a power of 2.
“NumSGPRs”	integer		Number of scalar registers used by a wavefront for GFX6-GFX9. This includes the special SGPRs for VCC, Flat Scratch (GFX7-GFX9) and XNACK (for GFX8-GFX9). It does not include the 16 SGPR added if a trap handler is enabled. It is not rounded up to the allocation granularity.
“NumVGPRs”	integer		Number of vector registers used by each work-item for GFX6-GFX9
“MaxFlatWorkgroupSize”	integer		Maximum flat work-group size supported by the kernel in work-items.
“IsDynamicCallStack”	boolean		Indicates if the generated machine code is using a dynamically sized call stack.
“IsXNACKEnabled”	boolean		Indicates if the generated machine code is capable of supporting XNACK.

AMDHSA Code Object Kernel Debug Properties Metadata Mapping

String Key	Value Type	Required?	Description
“DebuggerABIVersion”	string
“ReservedNumVGPRs”	integer
“ReservedFirstVGPR”	integer
“PrivateSegmentBufferSGPR”	integer
“WavefrontPrivateSegmentOffsetSGPR”	integer

Symbols

Symbols include the following:

AMDGPU ELF Symbols

Name	Type	Section	Description
link-name	STT_OBJECT	.data .rodata .bss	Global variable
link-name@kd	STT_OBJECT	.rodata	Kernel descriptor
link-name	STT_FUNC	.text	Kernel entry point

Global variable

Global variables both used and defined by the compilation unit.

If the symbol is defined in the compilation unit then it is allocated in the appropriate section according to if it has initialized data or is readonly.

If the symbol is external then its section is STN_UNDEF and the loader will resolve relocations using the definition provided by another code object or explicitly defined by the runtime.

All global symbols, whether defined in the compilation unit or external, are accessed by the machine code indirectly through a GOT table entry. This allows them to be preemptable. The GOT table is only supported when the target triple OS is amdhsa (see Target Triples).

Kernel descriptor

Every HSA kernel has an associated kernel descriptor. It is the address of the kernel descriptor that is used in the AQL dispatch packet used to invoke the kernel, not the kernel entry point. The layout of the HSA kernel descriptor is defined in Kernel Descriptor.

Kernel entry point

Every HSA kernel also has a symbol for its machine code entry point.

Relocation Records

AMDGPU backend generates Elf64_Rela relocation records. Supported relocatable fields are:

word32

This specifies a 32-bit field occupying 4 bytes with arbitrary byte alignment. These values use the same byte order as other word values in the AMD GPU architecture.

word64

This specifies a 64-bit field occupying 8 bytes with arbitrary byte alignment. These values use the same byte order as other word values in the AMD GPU architecture.

Following notations are used for specifying relocation calculations:

A

Represents the addend used to compute the value of the relocatable field.

G

Represents the offset into the global offset table at which the relocation entry’s symbol will reside during execution.

GOT

Represents the address of the global offset table.

P

Represents the place (section offset for et_rel or address for et_dyn) of the storage unit being relocated (computed using r_offset).

S

Represents the value of the symbol whose index resides in the relocation entry.

The following relocation types are supported:

AMDGPU ELF Relocation Records

Relocation Type	Value	Field	Calculation
R_AMDGPU_NONE	0	none	none
R_AMDGPU_ABS32_LO	1	word32	(S + A) & 0xFFFFFFFF
R_AMDGPU_ABS32_HI	2	word32	(S + A) >> 32
R_AMDGPU_ABS64	3	word64	S + A
R_AMDGPU_REL32	4	word32	S + A - P
R_AMDGPU_REL64	5	word64	S + A - P
R_AMDGPU_ABS32	6	word32	S + A
R_AMDGPU_GOTPCREL	7	word32	G + GOT + A - P
R_AMDGPU_GOTPCREL32_LO	8	word32	(G + GOT + A - P) & 0xFFFFFFFF
R_AMDGPU_GOTPCREL32_HI	9	word32	(G + GOT + A - P) >> 32
R_AMDGPU_REL32_LO	10	word32	(S + A - P) & 0xFFFFFFFF
R_AMDGPU_REL32_HI	11	word32	(S + A - P) >> 32

DWARF

Standard DWARF [DWARF] Version 2 sections can be generated. These contain information that maps the code object executable code and data to the source language constructs. It can be used by tools such as debuggers and profilers.

Address Space Mapping

The following address space mapping is used:

AMDGPU DWARF Address Space Mapping

DWARF Address Space	Memory Space
1	Private (Scratch)
2	Local (group/LDS)
omitted	Global
omitted	Constant
omitted	Generic (Flat)
not supported	Region (GDS)

See Address Spaces for infomration on the memory space terminology used in the table.

An address_class attribute is generated on pointer type DIEs to specify the DWARF address space of the value of the pointer when it is in the private or local address space. Otherwise the attribute is omitted.

An XDEREF operation is generated in location list expressions for variables that are allocated in the private and local address space. Otherwise no XDREF is omitted.

Register Mapping

This section is WIP.

Source Text

This section is WIP.

Code Conventions

AMDHSA

This section provides code conventions used when the target triple OS is amdhsa (see Target Triples).

Kernel Dispatch

The HSA architected queuing language (AQL) defines a user space memory interface that can be used to control the dispatch of kernels, in an agent independent way. An agent can have zero or more AQL queues created for it using the ROCm runtime, in which AQL packets (all of which are 64 bytes) can be placed. See the HSA Platform System Architecture Specification [HSA] for the AQL queue mechanics and packet layouts.

The packet processor of a kernel agent is responsible for detecting and dispatching HSA kernels from the AQL queues associated with it. For AMD GPUs the packet processor is implemented by the hardware command processor (CP), asynchronous dispatch controller (ADC) and shader processor input controller (SPI).

The ROCm runtime can be used to allocate an AQL queue object. It uses the kernel mode driver to initialize and register the AQL queue with CP.

To dispatch a kernel the following actions are performed. This can occur in the CPU host program, or from an HSA kernel executing on a GPU.

1. A pointer to an AQL queue for the kernel agent on which the kernel is to be executed is obtained.

2. A pointer to the kernel descriptor (see Kernel Descriptor) of the kernel to execute is obtained. It must be for a kernel that is contained in a code object that that was loaded by the ROCm runtime on the kernel agent with which the AQL queue is associated.

3. Space is allocated for the kernel arguments using the ROCm runtime allocator for a memory region with the kernarg property for the kernel agent that will execute the kernel. It must be at least 16 byte aligned.

4. Kernel argument values are assigned to the kernel argument memory allocation. The layout is defined in the HSA Programmer’s Language Reference [HSA]. For AMDGPU the kernel execution directly accesses the kernel argument memory in the same way constant memory is accessed. (Note that the HSA specification allows an implementation to copy the kernel argument contents to another location that is accessed by the kernel.)

5. An AQL kernel dispatch packet is created on the AQL queue. The ROCm runtime api uses 64 bit atomic operations to reserve space in the AQL queue for the packet. The packet must be set up, and the final write must use an atomic store release to set the packet kind to ensure the packet contents are visible to the kernel agent. AQL defines a doorbell signal mechanism to notify the kernel agent that the AQL queue has been updated. These rules, and the layout of the AQL queue and kernel dispatch packet is defined in the HSA System Architecture Specification [HSA].

6. A kernel dispatch packet includes information about the actual dispatch, such as grid and work-group size, together with information from the code object about the kernel, such as segment sizes. The ROCm runtime queries on the kernel symbol can be used to obtain the code object values which are recorded in the Code Object Metadata.

7. CP executes micro-code and is responsible for detecting and setting up the GPU to execute the wavefronts of a kernel dispatch.

8. CP ensures that when the a wavefront starts executing the kernel machine code, the scalar general purpose registers (SGPR) and vector general purpose registers (VGPR) are set up as required by the machine code. The required setup is defined in the Kernel Descriptor. The initial register state is defined in Initial Kernel Execution State.

9. The prolog of the kernel machine code (see Kernel Prolog) sets up the machine state as necessary before continuing executing the machine code that corresponds to the kernel.

10. When the kernel dispatch has completed execution, CP signals the completion signal specified in the kernel dispatch packet if not 0.

Memory Spaces

The memory space properties are:

AMDHSA Memory Spaces

Memory Space Name	HSA Segment Name	Hardware Name	Address Size	NULL Value
Private	private	scratch	32	0x00000000
Local	group	LDS	32	0xFFFFFFFF
Global	global	global	64	0x0000000000000000
Constant	constant	same as global	64	0x0000000000000000
Generic	flat	flat	64	0x0000000000000000
Region	N/A	GDS	32	not implemented for AMDHSA

The global and constant memory spaces both use global virtual addresses, which are the same virtual address space used by the CPU. However, some virtual addresses may only be accessible to the CPU, some only accessible by the GPU, and some by both.

Using the constant memory space indicates that the data will not change during the execution of the kernel. This allows scalar read instructions to be used. The vector and scalar L1 caches are invalidated of volatile data before each kernel dispatch execution to allow constant memory to change values between kernel dispatches.

The local memory space uses the hardware Local Data Store (LDS) which is automatically allocated when the hardware creates work-groups of wavefronts, and freed when all the wavefronts of a work-group have terminated. The data store (DS) instructions can be used to access it.

The private memory space uses the hardware scratch memory support. If the kernel uses scratch, then the hardware allocates memory that is accessed using wavefront lane dword (4 byte) interleaving. The mapping used from private address to physical address is:

wavefront-scratch-base + (private-address * wavefront-size * 4) + (wavefront-lane-id * 4)

There are different ways that the wavefront scratch base address is determined by a wavefront (see Initial Kernel Execution State). This memory can be accessed in an interleaved manner using buffer instruction with the scratch buffer descriptor and per wave scratch offset, by the scratch instructions, or by flat instructions. If each lane of a wavefront accesses the same private address, the interleaving results in adjacent dwords being accessed and hence requires fewer cache lines to be fetched. Multi-dword access is not supported except by flat and scratch instructions in GFX9.

The generic address space uses the hardware flat address support available in GFX7-GFX9. This uses two fixed ranges of virtual addresses (the private and local appertures), that are outside the range of addressible global memory, to map from a flat address to a private or local address.

FLAT instructions can take a flat address and access global, private (scratch) and group (LDS) memory depending in if the address is within one of the apperture ranges. Flat access to scratch requires hardware aperture setup and setup in the kernel prologue (see Flat Scratch). Flat access to LDS requires hardware aperture setup and M0 (GFX7-GFX8) register setup (see M0).

To convert between a segment address and a flat address the base address of the appertures address can be used. For GFX7-GFX8 these are available in the HSA AQL Queue the address of which can be obtained with Queue Ptr SGPR (see Initial Kernel Execution State). For GFX9 the appature base addresses are directly available as inline constant registers SRC_SHARED_BASE/LIMIT and SRC_PRIVATE_BASE/LIMIT. In 64 bit address mode the apperture sizes are 2^32 bytes and the base is aligned to 2^32 which makes it easier to convert from flat to segment or segment to flat.

HSA Image and Samplers

Image and sample handles created by the ROCm runtime are 64 bit addresses of a hardware 32 byte V# and 48 byte S# object respectively. In order to support the HSA query_sampler operations two extra dwords are used to store the HSA BRIG enumeration values for the queries that are not trivially deducible from the S# representation.

HSA Signals

Signal handles created by the ROCm runtime are 64 bit addresses of a structure allocated in memory accessible from both the CPU and GPU. The structure is defined by the ROCm runtime and subject to change between releases (see [AMD-ROCm-github]).

HSA AQL Queue

The AQL queue structure is defined by the ROCm runtime and subject to change between releases (see [AMD-ROCm-github]). For some processors it contains fields needed to implement certain language features such as the flat address aperture bases. It also contains fields used by CP such as managing the allocation of scratch memory.

Kernel Descriptor

A kernel descriptor consists of the information needed by CP to initiate the execution of a kernel, including the entry point address of the machine code that implements the kernel.

Kernel Descriptor for GFX6-GFX9

CP microcode requires the Kernel descritor to be allocated on 64 byte alignment.

Kernel Descriptor for GFX6-GFX9

Bits	Size	Field Name	Description
31:0	4 bytes	group_segment_fixed_size	The amount of fixed local address space memory required for a work-group in bytes. This does not include any dynamically allocated local address space memory that may be added when the kernel is dispatched.
63:32	4 bytes	private_segment_fixed_size	The amount of fixed private address space memory required for a work-item in bytes. If is_dynamic_callstack is 1 then additional space must be added to this value for the call stack.
95:64	4 bytes	max_flat_workgroup_size	Maximum flat work-group size supported by the kernel in work-items.
96	1 bit	is_dynamic_call_stack	Indicates if the generated machine code is using a dynamically sized call stack.
97	1 bit	is_xnack_enabled	Indicates if the generated machine code is capable of suppoting XNACK.
127:98	30 bits		Reserved. Must be 0.
191:128	8 bytes	kernel_code_entry_byte_offset	Byte offset (possibly negative) from base address of kernel descriptor to kernel’s entry point instruction which must be 256 byte aligned.
383:192	24 bytes		Reserved. Must be 0.
415:384	4 bytes	compute_pgm_rsrc1	Compute Shader (CS) program settings used by CP to set up COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC1 configuration register. See compute_pgm_rsrc1 for GFX6-GFX9.
447:416	4 bytes	compute_pgm_rsrc2	Compute Shader (CS) program settings used by CP to set up COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC2 configuration register. See compute_pgm_rsrc2 for GFX6-GFX9.
448	1 bit	enable_sgpr_private_segment _buffer	Enable the setup of the SGPR user data registers (see Initial Kernel Execution State). The total number of SGPR user data registers requested must not exceed 16 and match value in compute_pgm_rsrc2.user_sgpr.user_sgpr_count. Any requests beyond 16 will be ignored.
449	1 bit	enable_sgpr_dispatch_ptr	see above
450	1 bit	enable_sgpr_queue_ptr	see above
451	1 bit	enable_sgpr_kernarg_segment_ptr	see above
452	1 bit	enable_sgpr_dispatch_id	see above
453	1 bit	enable_sgpr_flat_scratch_init	see above
454	1 bit	enable_sgpr_private_segment _size	see above
455	1 bit	enable_sgpr_grid_workgroup _count_X	Not implemented in CP and should always be 0.
456	1 bit	enable_sgpr_grid_workgroup _count_Y	Not implemented in CP and should always be 0.
457	1 bit	enable_sgpr_grid_workgroup _count_Z	Not implemented in CP and should always be 0.
463:458	6 bits		Reserved. Must be 0.
511:464	4 bytes		Reserved. Must be 0.
512	Total size 64 bytes.

compute_pgm_rsrc1 for GFX6-GFX9

Bits	Size	Field Name	Description
5:0	6 bits	granulated_workitem_vgpr_count	Number of vector registers used by each work-item, granularity is device specific: GFX6-9 roundup((max-vgpg + 1) / 4) - 1 Used by CP to set up COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC1.VGPRS.
9:6	4 bits	granulated_wavefront_sgpr_count	Number of scalar registers used by a wavefront, granularity is device specific: GFX6-8 roundup((max-sgpg + 1) / 8) - 1 GFX9 roundup((max-sgpg + 1) / 16) - 1 Includes the special SGPRs for VCC, Flat Scratch (for GFX7 onwards) and XNACK (for GFX8 onwards). It does not include the 16 SGPR added if a trap handler is enabled. Used by CP to set up COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC1.SGPRS.
11:10	2 bits	priority	Must be 0. Start executing wavefront at the specified priority. CP is responsible for filling in COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC1.PRIORITY.
13:12	2 bits	float_mode_round_32	Wavefront starts execution with specified rounding mode for single (32 bit) floating point precision floating point operations. Floating point rounding mode values are defined in Floating Point Rounding Mode Enumeration Values. Used by CP to set up COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC1.FLOAT_MODE.
15:14	2 bits	float_mode_round_16_64	Wavefront starts execution with specified rounding denorm mode for half/double (16 and 64 bit) floating point precision floating point operations. Floating point rounding mode values are defined in Floating Point Rounding Mode Enumeration Values. Used by CP to set up COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC1.FLOAT_MODE.
17:16	2 bits	float_mode_denorm_32	Wavefront starts execution with specified denorm mode for single (32 bit) floating point precision floating point operations. Floating point denorm mode values are defined in Floating Point Denorm Mode Enumeration Values. Used by CP to set up COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC1.FLOAT_MODE.
19:18	2 bits	float_mode_denorm_16_64	Wavefront starts execution with specified denorm mode for half/double (16 and 64 bit) floating point precision floating point operations. Floating point denorm mode values are defined in Floating Point Denorm Mode Enumeration Values. Used by CP to set up COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC1.FLOAT_MODE.
20	1 bit	priv	Must be 0. Start executing wavefront in privilege trap handler mode. CP is responsible for filling in COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC1.PRIV.
21	1 bit	enable_dx10_clamp	Wavefront starts execution with DX10 clamp mode enabled. Used by the vector ALU to force DX-10 style treatment of NaN’s (when set, clamp NaN to zero, otherwise pass NaN through). Used by CP to set up COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC1.DX10_CLAMP.
22	1 bit	debug_mode	Must be 0. Start executing wavefront in single step mode. CP is responsible for filling in COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC1.DEBUG_MODE.
23	1 bit	enable_ieee_mode	Wavefront starts execution with IEEE mode enabled. Floating point opcodes that support exception flag gathering will quiet and propagate signaling-NaN inputs per IEEE 754-2008. Min_dx10 and max_dx10 become IEEE 754-2008 compliant due to signaling-NaN propagation and quieting. Used by CP to set up COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC1.IEEE_MODE.
24	1 bit	bulky	Must be 0. Only one work-group allowed to execute on a compute unit. CP is responsible for filling in COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC1.BULKY.
25	1 bit	cdbg_user	Must be 0. Flag that can be used to control debugging code. CP is responsible for filling in COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC1.CDBG_USER.
31:26	6 bits		Reserved. Must be 0.
32	Total size 4 bytes

compute_pgm_rsrc2 for GFX6-GFX9

Bits	Size	Field Name	Description
0	1 bit	enable_sgpr_private_segment _wave_offset	Enable the setup of the SGPR wave scratch offset system register (see Initial Kernel Execution State). Used by CP to set up COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC2.SCRATCH_EN.
5:1	5 bits	user_sgpr_count	The total number of SGPR user data registers requested. This number must match the number of user data registers enabled. Used by CP to set up COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC2.USER_SGPR.
6	1 bit	enable_trap_handler	Set to 1 if code contains a TRAP instruction which requires a trap handler to be enabled. CP sets COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC2.TRAP_PRESENT if the runtime has installed a trap handler regardless of the setting of this field.
7	1 bit	enable_sgpr_workgroup_id_x	Enable the setup of the system SGPR register for the work-group id in the X dimension (see Initial Kernel Execution State). Used by CP to set up COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC2.TGID_X_EN.
8	1 bit	enable_sgpr_workgroup_id_y	Enable the setup of the system SGPR register for the work-group id in the Y dimension (see Initial Kernel Execution State). Used by CP to set up COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC2.TGID_Y_EN.
9	1 bit	enable_sgpr_workgroup_id_z	Enable the setup of the system SGPR register for the work-group id in the Z dimension (see Initial Kernel Execution State). Used by CP to set up COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC2.TGID_Z_EN.
10	1 bit	enable_sgpr_workgroup_info	Enable the setup of the system SGPR register for work-group information (see Initial Kernel Execution State). Used by CP to set up COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC2.TGID_SIZE_EN.
12:11	2 bits	enable_vgpr_workitem_id	Enable the setup of the VGPR system registers used for the work-item ID. System VGPR Work-Item ID Enumeration Values defines the values. Used by CP to set up COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC2.TIDIG_CMP_CNT.
13	1 bit	enable_exception_address_watch	Must be 0. Wavefront starts execution with address watch exceptions enabled which are generated when L1 has witnessed a thread access an address of interest. CP is responsible for filling in the address watch bit in COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC2.EXCP_EN_MSB according to what the runtime requests.
14	1 bit	enable_exception_memory	Must be 0. Wavefront starts execution with memory violation exceptions exceptions enabled which are generated when a memory violation has occurred for this wave from L1 or LDS (write-to-read-only-memory, mis-aligned atomic, LDS address out of range, illegal address, etc.). CP sets the memory violation bit in COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC2.EXCP_EN_MSB according to what the runtime requests.
23:15	9 bits	granulated_lds_size	Must be 0. CP uses the rounded value from the dispatch packet, not this value, as the dispatch may contain dynamically allocated group segment memory. CP writes directly to COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC2.LDS_SIZE. Amount of group segment (LDS) to allocate for each work-group. Granularity is device specific: GFX6: roundup(lds-size / (64 * 4)) GFX7-GFX9: roundup(lds-size / (128 * 4))
24	1 bit	enable_exception_ieee_754_fp _invalid_operation	Wavefront starts execution with specified exceptions enabled. Used by CP to set up COMPUTE_PGM_RSRC2.EXCP_EN (set from bits 0..6). IEEE 754 FP Invalid Operation
25	1 bit	enable_exception_fp_denormal _source	FP Denormal one or more input operands is a denormal number
26	1 bit	enable_exception_ieee_754_fp _division_by_zero	IEEE 754 FP Division by Zero
27	1 bit	enable_exception_ieee_754_fp _overflow	IEEE 754 FP FP Overflow
28	1 bit	enable_exception_ieee_754_fp _underflow	IEEE 754 FP Underflow
29	1 bit	enable_exception_ieee_754_fp _inexact	IEEE 754 FP Inexact
30	1 bit	enable_exception_int_divide_by _zero	Integer Division by Zero (rcp_iflag_f32 instruction only)
31	1 bit		Reserved. Must be 0.
32	Total size 4 bytes.

Floating Point Rounding Mode Enumeration Values

Enumeration Name	Value	Description
AMD_FLOAT_ROUND_MODE_NEAR_EVEN	0	Round Ties To Even
AMD_FLOAT_ROUND_MODE_PLUS_INFINITY	1	Round Toward +infinity
AMD_FLOAT_ROUND_MODE_MINUS_INFINITY	2	Round Toward -infinity
AMD_FLOAT_ROUND_MODE_ZERO	3	Round Toward 0

Floating Point Denorm Mode Enumeration Values

Enumeration Name	Value	Description
AMD_FLOAT_DENORM_MODE_FLUSH_SRC_DST	0	Flush Source and Destination Denorms
AMD_FLOAT_DENORM_MODE_FLUSH_DST	1	Flush Output Denorms
AMD_FLOAT_DENORM_MODE_FLUSH_SRC	2	Flush Source Denorms
AMD_FLOAT_DENORM_MODE_FLUSH_NONE	3	No Flush

System VGPR Work-Item ID Enumeration Values

Enumeration Name	Value	Description
AMD_SYSTEM_VGPR_WORKITEM_ID_X	0	Set work-item X dimension ID.
AMD_SYSTEM_VGPR_WORKITEM_ID_X_Y	1	Set work-item X and Y dimensions ID.
AMD_SYSTEM_VGPR_WORKITEM_ID_X_Y_Z	2	Set work-item X, Y and Z dimensions ID.
AMD_SYSTEM_VGPR_WORKITEM_ID_UNDEFINED	3	Undefined.

Initial Kernel Execution State

This section defines the register state that will be set up by the packet processor prior to the start of execution of every wavefront. This is limited by the constraints of the hardware controllers of CP/ADC/SPI.

The order of the SGPR registers is defined, but the compiler can specify which ones are actually setup in the kernel descriptor using the enable_sgpr_* bit fields (see Kernel Descriptor). The register numbers used for enabled registers are dense starting at SGPR0: the first enabled register is SGPR0, the next enabled register is SGPR1 etc.; disabled registers do not have an SGPR number.

The initial SGPRs comprise up to 16 User SRGPs that are set by CP and apply to all waves of the grid. It is possible to specify more than 16 User SGPRs using the enable_sgpr_* bit fields, in which case only the first 16 are actually initialized. These are then immediately followed by the System SGPRs that are set up by ADC/SPI and can have different values for each wave of the grid dispatch.

SGPR register initial state is defined in SGPR Register Set Up Order.

SGPR Register Set Up Order

SGPR Order	Name (kernel descriptor enable field)	Number of SGPRs	Description
First	Private Segment Buffer (enable_sgpr_private _segment_buffer)	4	V# that can be used, together with Scratch Wave Offset as an offset, to access the private memory space using a segment address. CP uses the value provided by the runtime.
then	Dispatch Ptr (enable_sgpr_dispatch_ptr)	2	64 bit address of AQL dispatch packet for kernel dispatch actually executing.
then	Queue Ptr (enable_sgpr_queue_ptr)	2	64 bit address of amd_queue_t object for AQL queue on which the dispatch packet was queued.
then	Kernarg Segment Ptr (enable_sgpr_kernarg _segment_ptr)	2	64 bit address of Kernarg segment. This is directly copied from the kernarg_address in the kernel dispatch packet. Having CP load it once avoids loading it at the beginning of every wavefront.
then	Dispatch Id (enable_sgpr_dispatch_id)	2	64 bit Dispatch ID of the dispatch packet being executed.
then	Flat Scratch Init (enable_sgpr_flat_scratch _init)	2	This is 2 SGPRs: GFX6 Not supported. GFX7-GFX8 The first SGPR is a 32 bit byte offset from SH_HIDDEN_PRIVATE_BASE_VIMID to per SPI base of memory for scratch for the queue executing the kernel dispatch. CP obtains this from the runtime. This is the same offset used in computing the Scratch Segment Buffer base address. The value of Scratch Wave Offset must be added by the kernel machine code and moved to SGPRn-4 for use as the FLAT SCRATCH BASE in flat memory instructions. The second SGPR is 32 bit byte size of a single work-item’s scratch memory usage. This is directly loaded from the kernel dispatch packet Private Segment Byte Size and rounded up to a multiple of DWORD. The kernel code must move to SGPRn-3 for use as the FLAT SCRATCH SIZE in flat memory instructions. Having CP load it once avoids loading it at the beginning of every wavefront. GFX9 This is the 64 bit base address of the per SPI scratch backing memory managed by SPI for the queue executing the kernel dispatch. CP obtains this from the runtime (and divides it if there are multiple Shader Arrays each with its own SPI). The value of Scratch Wave Offset must be added by the kernel machine code and moved to SGPRn-4 and SGPRn-3 for use as the FLAT SCRATCH BASE in flat memory instructions.
then	Private Segment Size (enable_sgpr_private _segment_size)	1	The 32 bit byte size of a single work-item’s scratch memory allocation. This is the value from the kernel dispatch packet Private Segment Byte Size rounded up by CP to a multiple of DWORD. Having CP load it once avoids loading it at the beginning of every wavefront. This is not used for GFX7-GFX8 since it is the same value as the second SGPR of Flat Scratch Init. However, it may be needed for GFX9 which changes the meaning of the Flat Scratch Init value.
then	Grid Work-Group Count X (enable_sgpr_grid _workgroup_count_X)	1	32 bit count of the number of work-groups in the X dimension for the grid being executed. Computed from the fields in the kernel dispatch packet as ((grid_size.x + workgroup_size.x - 1) / workgroup_size.x).
then	Grid Work-Group Count Y (enable_sgpr_grid _workgroup_count_Y && less than 16 previous SGPRs)	1	32 bit count of the number of work-groups in the Y dimension for the grid being executed. Computed from the fields in the kernel dispatch packet as ((grid_size.y + workgroup_size.y - 1) / workgroupSize.y). Only initialized if <16 previous SGPRs initialized.
then	Grid Work-Group Count Z (enable_sgpr_grid _workgroup_count_Z && less than 16 previous SGPRs)	1	32 bit count of the number of work-groups in the Z dimension for the grid being executed. Computed from the fields in the kernel dispatch packet as ((grid_size.z + workgroup_size.z - 1) / workgroupSize.z). Only initialized if <16 previous SGPRs initialized.
then	Work-Group Id X (enable_sgpr_workgroup_id _X)	1	32 bit work-group id in X dimension of grid for wavefront.
then	Work-Group Id Y (enable_sgpr_workgroup_id _Y)	1	32 bit work-group id in Y dimension of grid for wavefront.
then	Work-Group Id Z (enable_sgpr_workgroup_id _Z)	1	32 bit work-group id in Z dimension of grid for wavefront.
then	Work-Group Info (enable_sgpr_workgroup _info)	1	{first_wave, 14’b0000, ordered_append_term[10:0], threadgroup_size_in_waves[5:0]}
then	Scratch Wave Offset (enable_sgpr_private _segment_wave_offset)	1	32 bit byte offset from base of scratch base of queue executing the kernel dispatch. Must be used as an offset with Private segment address when using Scratch Segment Buffer. It must be used to set up FLAT SCRATCH for flat addressing (see Flat Scratch).

The order of the VGPR registers is defined, but the compiler can specify which ones are actually setup in the kernel descriptor using the enable_vgpr* bit fields (see Kernel Descriptor). The register numbers used for enabled registers are dense starting at VGPR0: the first enabled register is VGPR0, the next enabled register is VGPR1 etc.; disabled registers do not have a VGPR number.

VGPR register initial state is defined in VGPR Register Set Up Order.

VGPR Register Set Up Order

VGPR Order	Name (kernel descriptor enable field)	Number of VGPRs	Description
First	Work-Item Id X (Always initialized)	1	32 bit work item id in X dimension of work-group for wavefront lane.
then	Work-Item Id Y (enable_vgpr_workitem_id > 0)	1	32 bit work item id in Y dimension of work-group for wavefront lane.
then	Work-Item Id Z (enable_vgpr_workitem_id > 1)	1	32 bit work item id in Z dimension of work-group for wavefront lane.

The setting of registers is is done by GPU CP/ADC/SPI hardware as follows:

1. SGPRs before the Work-Group Ids are set by CP using the 16 User Data registers.

2. Work-group Id registers X, Y, Z are set by ADC which supports any combination including none.

3. Scratch Wave Offset is set by SPI in a per wave basis which is why its value cannot included with the flat scratch init value which is per queue.

4. The VGPRs are set by SPI which only supports specifying either (X), (X, Y) or (X, Y, Z).

Flat Scratch register pair are adjacent SGRRs so they can be moved as a 64 bit value to the hardware required SGPRn-3 and SGPRn-4 respectively.

The global segment can be accessed either using buffer instructions (GFX6 which has V# 64 bit address support), flat instructions (GFX7-9), or global instructions (GFX9).

If buffer operations are used then the compiler can generate a V# with the following properties:

• base address of 0

• no swizzle

• ATC: 1 if IOMMU present (such as APU)

• ptr64: 1

• MTYPE set to support memory coherence that matches the runtime (such as CC for APU and NC for dGPU).

Kernel Prolog

M0

GFX6-GFX8

The M0 register must be initialized with a value at least the total LDS size if the kernel may access LDS via DS or flat operations. Total LDS size is available in dispatch packet. For M0, it is also possible to use maximum possible value of LDS for given target (0x7FFF for GFX6 and 0xFFFF for GFX7-GFX8).

GFX9

The M0 register is not used for range checking LDS accesses and so does not need to be initialized in the prolog.

Flat Scratch

If the kernel may use flat operations to access scratch memory, the prolog code must set up FLAT_SCRATCH register pair (FLAT_SCRATCH_LO/FLAT_SCRATCH_HI which are in SGPRn-4/SGPRn-3). Initialization uses Flat Scratch Init and Scratch Wave Offset SGPR registers (see Initial Kernel Execution State):

GFX6

Flat scratch is not supported.

GFX7-8

1. The low word of Flat Scratch Init is 32 bit byte offset from SH_HIDDEN_PRIVATE_BASE_VIMID to the base of scratch backing memory being managed by SPI for the queue executing the kernel dispatch. This is the same value used in the Scratch Segment Buffer V# base address. The prolog must add the value of Scratch Wave Offset to get the wave’s byte scratch backing memory offset from SH_HIDDEN_PRIVATE_BASE_VIMID. Since FLAT_SCRATCH_LO is in units of 256 bytes, the offset must be right shifted by 8 before moving into FLAT_SCRATCH_LO.

2. The second word of Flat Scratch Init is 32 bit byte size of a single work-items scratch memory usage. This is directly loaded from the kernel dispatch packet Private Segment Byte Size and rounded up to a multiple of DWORD. Having CP load it once avoids loading it at the beginning of every wavefront. The prolog must move it to FLAT_SCRATCH_LO for use as FLAT SCRATCH SIZE.

GFX9

The Flat Scratch Init is the 64 bit address of the base of scratch backing memory being managed by SPI for the queue executing the kernel dispatch. The prolog must add the value of Scratch Wave Offset and moved to the FLAT_SCRATCH pair for use as the flat scratch base in flat memory instructions.

Memory Model

This section describes the mapping of LLVM memory model onto AMDGPU machine code (see Memory Model for Concurrent Operations). The implementation is WIP.

The AMDGPU backend supports the memory synchronization scopes specified in Memory Scopes.

The code sequences used to implement the memory model are defined in table AMDHSA Memory Model Code Sequences GFX6-GFX9.

The sequences specify the order of instructions that a single thread must execute. The s_waitcnt and buffer_wbinvl1_vol are defined with respect to other memory instructions executed by the same thread. This allows them to be moved earlier or later which can allow them to be combined with other instances of the same instruction, or hoisted/sunk out of loops to improve performance. Only the instructions related to the memory model are given; additional s_waitcnt instructions are required to ensure registers are defined before being used. These may be able to be combined with the memory model s_waitcnt instructions as described above.

The AMDGPU memory model supports both the HSA [HSA] memory model, and the OpenCL [OpenCL] memory model. The HSA memory model uses a single happens-before relation for all address spaces (see Address Spaces). The OpenCL memory model which has separate happens-before relations for the global and local address spaces, and only a fence specifying both global and local address space joins the relationships. Since the LLVM memfence instruction does not allow an address space to be specified the OpenCL fence has to convervatively assume both local and global address space was specified. However, optimizations can often be done to eliminate the additional s_waitcnt``instructions when there are no intervening corresponding ``ds/flat_load/store/atomic memory instructions. The code sequences in the table indicate what can be omitted for the OpenCL memory. The target triple environment is used to determine if the source language is OpenCL (see OpenCL).

ds/flat_load/store/atomic instructions to local memory are termed LDS operations.

buffer/global/flat_load/store/atomic instructions to global memory are termed vector memory operations.

For GFX6-GFX9:

• Each agent has multiple compute units (CU).

• Each CU has multiple SIMDs that execute wavefronts.

• The wavefronts for a single work-group are executed in the same CU but may be executed by different SIMDs.

• Each CU has a single LDS memory shared by the wavefronts of the work-groups executing on it.

• All LDS operations of a CU are performed as wavefront wide operations in a global order and involve no caching. Completion is reported to a wavefront in execution order.

• The LDS memory has multiple request queues shared by the SIMDs of a CU. Therefore, the LDS operations performed by different waves of a work-group can be reordered relative to each other, which can result in reordering the visibility of vector memory operations with respect to LDS operations of other wavefronts in the same work-group. A s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) is required to ensure synchronization between LDS operations and vector memory operations between waves of a work-group, but not between operations performed by the same wavefront.

• The vector memory operations are performed as wavefront wide operations and completion is reported to a wavefront in execution order. The exception is that for GFX7-9 flat_load/store/atomic instructions can report out of vector memory order if they access LDS memory, and out of LDS operation order if they access global memory.

• The vector memory operations access a vector L1 cache shared by all wavefronts on a CU. Therefore, no special action is required for coherence between wavefronts in the same work-group. A buffer_wbinvl1_vol is required for coherence between waves executing in different work-groups as they may be executing on different CUs.

• The scalar memory operations access a scalar L1 cache shared by all wavefronts on a group of CUs. The scalar and vector L1 caches are not coherent. However, scalar operations are used in a restricted way so do not impact the memory model. See Memory Spaces.

• The vector and scalar memory operations use an L2 cache shared by all CUs on the same agent.

• The L2 cache has independent channels to service disjoint ranges of virtual addresses.

• Each CU has a separate request queue per channel. Therefore, the vector and scalar memory operations performed by waves executing in different work-groups (which may be executing on different CUs) of an agent can be reordered relative to each other. A s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) is required to ensure synchronization between vector memory operations of different CUs. It ensures a previous vector memory operation has completed before executing a subsequent vector memory or LDS operation and so can be used to meet the requirements of acquire and release.

• The L2 cache can be kept coherent with other agents on some targets, or ranges of virtual addresses can be set up to bypass it to ensure system coherence.

Private address space uses buffer_load/store using the scratch V# (GFX6-8), or scratch_load/store (GFX9). Since only a single thread is accessing the memory, atomic memory orderings are not meaningful and all accesses are treated as non-atomic.

Constant address space uses buffer/global_load instructions (or equivalent scalar memory instructions). Since the constant address space contents do not change during the execution of a kernel dispatch it is not legal to perform stores, and atomic memory orderings are not meaningful and all access are treated as non-atomic.

A memory synchronization scope wider than work-group is not meaningful for the group (LDS) address space and is treated as work-group.

The memory model does not support the region address space which is treated as non-atomic.

Acquire memory ordering is not meaningful on store atomic instructions and is treated as non-atomic.

Release memory ordering is not meaningful on load atomic instructions and is treated a non-atomic.

Acquire-release memory ordering is not meaningful on load or store atomic instructions and is treated as acquire and release respectively.

AMDGPU backend only uses scalar memory operations to access memory that is proven to not change during the execution of the kernel dispatch. This includes constant address space and global address space for program scope const variables. Therefore the kernel machine code does not have to maintain the scalar L1 cache to ensure it is coherent with the vector L1 cache. The scalar and vector L1 caches are invalidated between kernel dispatches by CP since constant address space data may change between kernel dispatch executions. See Memory Spaces.

The one execption is if scalar writes are used to spill SGPR registers. In this case the AMDGPU backend ensures the memory location used to spill is never accessed by vector memory operations at the same time. If scalar writes are used then a s_dcache_wb is inserted before the s_endpgm and before a function return since the locations may be used for vector memory instructions by a future wave that uses the same scratch area, or a function call that creates a frame at the same address, respectively. There is no need for a s_dcache_inv as all scalar writes are write-before-read in the same thread.

Scratch backing memory (which is used for the private address space) is accessed with MTYPE NC_NV (non-coherenent non-volatile). Since the private address space is only accessed by a single thread, and is always write-before-read, there is never a need to invalidate these entries from the L1 cache. Hence all cache invalidates are done as *_vol to only invalidate the volatile cache lines.

On dGPU the kernarg backing memory is accessed as UC (uncached) to avoid needing to invalidate the L2 cache. This also causes it to be treated as non-volatile and so is not invalidated by *_vol. On APU it is accessed as CC (cache coherent) and so the L2 cache will coherent with the CPU and other agents.

AMDHSA Memory Model Code Sequences GFX6-GFX9

LLVM Instr	LLVM Memory Ordering	LLVM Memory Sync Scope	AMDGPU Address Space	AMDGPU Machine Code
Non-Atomic
load	none	none	global generic	non-volatile buffer/global/flat_load volatile buffer/global/flat_load glc=1
load	none	none	local	ds_load
store	none	none	global generic	buffer/global/flat_store
store	none	none	local	ds_store
Unordered Atomic
load atomic	unordered	any	any	Same as non-atomic.
store atomic	unordered	any	any	Same as non-atomic.
atomicrmw	unordered	any	any	Same as monotonic atomic.
Monotonic Atomic
load atomic	monotonic	singlethread wavefront workgroup	global generic	buffer/global/flat_load
load atomic	monotonic	singlethread wavefront workgroup	local	ds_load
load atomic	monotonic	agent system	global generic	buffer/global/flat_load glc=1
store atomic	monotonic	singlethread wavefront workgroup agent system	global generic	buffer/global/flat_store
store atomic	monotonic	singlethread wavefront workgroup	local	ds_store
atomicrmw	monotonic	singlethread wavefront workgroup agent system	global generic	buffer/global/flat_atomic
atomicrmw	monotonic	singlethread wavefront workgroup	local	ds_atomic
Acquire Atomic
load atomic	acquire	singlethread wavefront	global local generic	buffer/global/ds/flat_load
load atomic	acquire	workgroup	global	buffer/global_load
load atomic	acquire	workgroup	local generic	ds/flat_load s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL, omit waitcnt. Must happen before any following global/generic load/load atomic/store/store atomic/atomicrmw. Ensures any following global data read is no older than the load atomic value being acquired.
load atomic	acquire	agent system	global	buffer/global_load glc=1 s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) Must happen before following buffer_wbinvl1_vol. Ensures the load has completed before invalidating the cache. buffer_wbinvl1_vol Must happen before any following global/generic load/load atomic/atomicrmw. Ensures that following loads will not see stale global data.
load atomic	acquire	agent system	generic	flat_load glc=1 s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) & lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL omit lgkmcnt(0). Must happen before following buffer_wbinvl1_vol. Ensures the flat_load has completed before invalidating the cache. buffer_wbinvl1_vol Must happen before any following global/generic load/load atomic/atomicrmw. Ensures that following loads will not see stale global data.
atomicrmw	acquire	singlethread wavefront	global local generic	buffer/global/ds/flat_atomic
atomicrmw	acquire	workgroup	global	buffer/global_atomic
atomicrmw	acquire	workgroup	local generic	ds/flat_atomic waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL, omit waitcnt. Must happen before any following global/generic load/load atomic/store/store atomic/atomicrmw. Ensures any following global data read is no older than the atomicrmw value being acquired.
atomicrmw	acquire	agent system	global	buffer/global_atomic s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) Must happen before following buffer_wbinvl1_vol. Ensures the atomicrmw has completed before invalidating the cache. buffer_wbinvl1_vol Must happen before any following global/generic load/load atomic/atomicrmw. Ensures that following loads will not see stale global data.
atomicrmw	acquire	agent system	generic	flat_atomic s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) & lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL, omit lgkmcnt(0). Must happen before following buffer_wbinvl1_vol. Ensures the atomicrmw has completed before invalidating the cache. buffer_wbinvl1_vol Must happen before any following global/generic load/load atomic/atomicrmw. Ensures that following loads will not see stale global data.
fence	acquire	singlethread wavefront	none	none
fence	acquire	workgroup	none	s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL and address space is not generic, omit waitcnt. However, since LLVM currently has no address space on the fence need to conservatively always generate. If fence had an address space then set to address space of OpenCL fence flag, or to generic if both local and global flags are specified. Must happen after any preceding local/generic load atomic/atomicrmw with an equal or wider sync scope and memory ordering stronger than unordered (this is termed the fence-paired-atomic). Must happen before any following global/generic load/load atomic/store/store atomic/atomicrmw. Ensures any following global data read is no older than the value read by the fence-paired-atomic.
fence	acquire	agent system	none	s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) & lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL and address space is not generic, omit lgkmcnt(0). However, since LLVM currently has no address space on the fence need to conservatively always generate (see comment for previous fence). Could be split into separate s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) and s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) to allow them to be independently moved according to the following rules. s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) must happen after any preceding global/generic load atomic/atomicrmw with an equal or wider sync scope and memory ordering stronger than unordered (this is termed the fence-paired-atomic). s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) must happen after any preceding group/generic load atomic/atomicrmw with an equal or wider sync scope and memory ordering stronger than unordered (this is termed the fence-paired-atomic). Must happen before the following buffer_wbinvl1_vol. Ensures that the fence-paired atomic has completed before invalidating the cache. Therefore any following locations read must be no older than the value read by the fence-paired-atomic. buffer_wbinvl1_vol Must happen before any following global/generic load/load atomic/store/store atomic/atomicrmw. Ensures that following loads will not see stale global data.
Release Atomic
store atomic	release	singlethread wavefront	global local generic	buffer/global/ds/flat_store
store atomic	release	workgroup	global generic	s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL, omit waitcnt. Must happen after any preceding local/generic load/store/load atomic/store atomic/atomicrmw. Must happen before the following store. Ensures that all memory operations to local have completed before performing the store that is being released. buffer/global/flat_store
store atomic	release	workgroup	local	ds_store
store atomic	release	agent system	global generic	s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) & lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL, omit lgkmcnt(0). Could be split into separate s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) and s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) to allow them to be independently moved according to the following rules. s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) must happen after any preceding global/generic load/store/load atomic/store atomic/atomicrmw. s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) must happen after any preceding local/generic load/store/load atomic/store atomic/atomicrmw. Must happen before the following store. Ensures that all memory operations to global have completed before performing the store that is being released. buffer/global/ds/flat_store
atomicrmw	release	singlethread wavefront	global local generic	buffer/global/ds/flat_atomic
atomicrmw	release	workgroup	global generic	s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL, omit waitcnt. Must happen after any preceding local/generic load/store/load atomic/store atomic/atomicrmw. Must happen before the following atomicrmw. Ensures that all memory operations to local have completed before performing the atomicrmw that is being released. buffer/global/flat_atomic
atomicrmw	release	workgroup	local	ds_atomic
atomicrmw	release	agent system	global generic	s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) & lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL, omit lgkmcnt(0). Could be split into separate s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) and s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) to allow them to be independently moved according to the following rules. s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) must happen after any preceding global/generic load/store/load atomic/store atomic/atomicrmw. s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) must happen after any preceding local/generic load/store/load atomic/store atomic/atomicrmw. Must happen before the following atomicrmw. Ensures that all memory operations to global and local have completed before performing the atomicrmw that is being released. buffer/global/ds/flat_atomic*
fence	release	singlethread wavefront	none	none
fence	release	workgroup	none	s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL and address space is not generic, omit waitcnt. However, since LLVM currently has no address space on the fence need to conservatively always generate (see comment for previous fence). Must happen after any preceding local/generic load/load atomic/store/store atomic/atomicrmw. Must happen before any following store atomic/atomicrmw with an equal or wider sync scope and memory ordering stronger than unordered (this is termed the fence-paired-atomic). Ensures that all memory operations to local have completed before performing the following fence-paired-atomic.
fence	release	agent system	none	s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) & lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL and address space is not generic, omit lgkmcnt(0). However, since LLVM currently has no address space on the fence need to conservatively always generate (see comment for previous fence). Could be split into separate s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) and s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) to allow them to be independently moved according to the following rules. s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) must happen after any preceding global/generic load/store/load atomic/store atomic/atomicrmw. s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) must happen after any preceding local/generic load/store/load atomic/store atomic/atomicrmw. Must happen before any following store atomic/atomicrmw with an equal or wider sync scope and memory ordering stronger than unordered (this is termed the fence-paired-atomic). Ensures that all memory operations to global have completed before performing the following fence-paired-atomic.
Acquire-Release Atomic
atomicrmw	acq_rel	singlethread wavefront	global local generic	buffer/global/ds/flat_atomic
atomicrmw	acq_rel	workgroup	global	s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL, omit waitcnt. Must happen after any preceding local/generic load/store/load atomic/store atomic/atomicrmw. Must happen before the following atomicrmw. Ensures that all memory operations to local have completed before performing the atomicrmw that is being released. buffer/global_atomic
atomicrmw	acq_rel	workgroup	local	ds_atomic s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL, omit waitcnt. Must happen before any following global/generic load/load atomic/store/store atomic/atomicrmw. Ensures any following global data read is no older than the load atomic value being acquired.
atomicrmw	acq_rel	workgroup	generic	s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL, omit waitcnt. Must happen after any preceding local/generic load/store/load atomic/store atomic/atomicrmw. Must happen before the following atomicrmw. Ensures that all memory operations to local have completed before performing the atomicrmw that is being released. flat_atomic s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL, omit waitcnt. Must happen before any following global/generic load/load atomic/store/store atomic/atomicrmw. Ensures any following global data read is no older than the load atomic value being acquired.
atomicrmw	acq_rel	agent system	global	s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) & lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL, omit lgkmcnt(0). Could be split into separate s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) and s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) to allow them to be independently moved according to the following rules. s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) must happen after any preceding global/generic load/store/load atomic/store atomic/atomicrmw. s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) must happen after any preceding local/generic load/store/load atomic/store atomic/atomicrmw. Must happen before the following atomicrmw. Ensures that all memory operations to global have completed before performing the atomicrmw that is being released. buffer/global_atomic s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) Must happen before following buffer_wbinvl1_vol. Ensures the atomicrmw has completed before invalidating the cache. buffer_wbinvl1_vol Must happen before any following global/generic load/load atomic/atomicrmw. Ensures that following loads will not see stale global data.
atomicrmw	acq_rel	agent system	generic	s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) & lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL, omit lgkmcnt(0). Could be split into separate s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) and s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) to allow them to be independently moved according to the following rules. s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) must happen after any preceding global/generic load/store/load atomic/store atomic/atomicrmw. s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) must happen after any preceding local/generic load/store/load atomic/store atomic/atomicrmw. Must happen before the following atomicrmw. Ensures that all memory operations to global have completed before performing the atomicrmw that is being released. flat_atomic s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) & lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL, omit lgkmcnt(0). Must happen before following buffer_wbinvl1_vol. Ensures the atomicrmw has completed before invalidating the cache. buffer_wbinvl1_vol Must happen before any following global/generic load/load atomic/atomicrmw. Ensures that following loads will not see stale global data.
fence	acq_rel	singlethread wavefront	none	none
fence	acq_rel	workgroup	none	s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL and address space is not generic, omit waitcnt. However, since LLVM currently has no address space on the fence need to conservatively always generate (see comment for previous fence). Must happen after any preceding local/generic load/load atomic/store/store atomic/atomicrmw. Must happen before any following global/generic load/load atomic/store/store atomic/atomicrmw. Ensures that all memory operations to local have completed before performing any following global memory operations. Ensures that the preceding local/generic load atomic/atomicrmw with an equal or wider sync scope and memory ordering stronger than unordered (this is termed the fence-paired-atomic) has completed before following global memory operations. This satisfies the requirements of acquire. Ensures that all previous memory operations have completed before a following local/generic store atomic/atomicrmw with an equal or wider sync scope and memory ordering stronger than unordered (this is termed the fence-paired-atomic). This satisfies the requirements of release.
fence	acq_rel	agent system	none	s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) & lgkmcnt(0) If OpenCL and address space is not generic, omit lgkmcnt(0). However, since LLVM currently has no address space on the fence need to conservatively always generate (see comment for previous fence). Could be split into separate s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) and s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) to allow them to be independently moved according to the following rules. s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) must happen after any preceding global/generic load/store/load atomic/store atomic/atomicrmw. s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0) must happen after any preceding local/generic load/store/load atomic/store atomic/atomicrmw. Must happen before the following buffer_wbinvl1_vol. Ensures that the preceding global/local/generic load atomic/atomicrmw with an equal or wider sync scope and memory ordering stronger than unordered (this is termed the fence-paired-atomic) has completed before invalidating the cache. This satisfies the requirements of acquire. Ensures that all previous memory operations have completed before a following global/local/generic store atomic/atomicrmw with an equal or wider sync scope and memory ordering stronger than unordered (this is termed the fence-paired-atomic). This satisfies the requirements of release. buffer_wbinvl1_vol Must happen before any following global/generic load/load atomic/store/store atomic/atomicrmw. Ensures that following loads will not see stale global data. This satisfies the requirements of acquire.
Sequential Consistent Atomic
load atomic	seq_cst	singlethread wavefront workgroup	global local generic	Same as corresponding load atomic acquire.
load atomic	seq_cst	agent system	global local generic	s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) Must happen after preceding global/generic load atomic/store atomic/atomicrmw with memory ordering of seq_cst and with equal or wider sync scope. (Note that seq_cst fences have their own s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) and so do not need to be considered.) Ensures any preceding sequential consistent global memory instructions have completed before executing this sequentially consistent instruction. This prevents reordering a seq_cst store followed by a seq_cst load (Note that seq_cst is stronger than acquire/release as the reordering of load acquire followed by a store release is prevented by the waitcnt vmcnt(0) of the release, but there is nothing preventing a store release followed by load acquire from competing out of order.) Following instructions same as corresponding load atomic acquire.
store atomic	seq_cst	singlethread wavefront workgroup	global local generic	Same as corresponding store atomic release.
store atomic	seq_cst	agent system	global generic	Same as corresponding store atomic release.
atomicrmw	seq_cst	singlethread wavefront workgroup	global local generic	Same as corresponding atomicrmw acq_rel.
atomicrmw	seq_cst	agent system	global generic	Same as corresponding atomicrmw acq_rel.
fence	seq_cst	singlethread wavefront workgroup agent system	none	Same as corresponding fence acq_rel.

The memory order also adds the single thread optimization constrains defined in table AMDHSA Memory Model Single Thread Optimization Constraints GFX6-GFX9.

AMDHSA Memory Model Single Thread Optimization Constraints GFX6-GFX9

LLVM Memory	Optimization Constraints
Ordering
unordered	none
monotonic	none
acquire	If a load atomic/atomicrmw then no following load/load atomic/store/ store atomic/atomicrmw/fence instruction can be moved before the acquire. If a fence then same as load atomic, plus no preceding associated fence-paired-atomic can be moved after the fence.
release	If a store atomic/atomicrmw then no preceding load/load atomic/store/ store atomic/atomicrmw/fence instruction can be moved after the release. If a fence then same as store atomic, plus no following associated fence-paired-atomic can be moved before the fence.
acq_rel	Same constraints as both acquire and release.
seq_cst	If a load atomic then same constraints as acquire, plus no preceding sequentially consistent load atomic/store atomic/atomicrmw/fence instruction can be moved after the seq_cst. If a store atomic then the same constraints as release, plus no following sequentially consistent load atomic/store atomic/atomicrmw/fence instruction can be moved before the seq_cst. If an atomicrmw/fence then same constraints as acq_rel.

Trap Handler ABI

For code objects generated by AMDGPU backend for HSA [HSA] compatible runtimes (such as ROCm [AMD-ROCm]), the runtime installs a trap handler that supports the s_trap instruction with the following usage:

AMDGPU Trap Handler for AMDHSA OS

Usage	Code Sequence	Trap Handler Inputs	Description
reserved	s_trap 0x00		Reserved by hardware.
debugtrap(arg)	s_trap 0x01	SGPR0-1: queue_ptr VGPR0: arg	Reserved for HSA debugtrap intrinsic (not implemented).
llvm.trap	s_trap 0x02	SGPR0-1: queue_ptr	Causes dispatch to be terminated and its associated queue put into the error state.
llvm.debugtrap	s_trap 0x03	SGPR0-1: queue_ptr	If debugger not installed handled same as llvm.trap.
debugger breakpoint	s_trap 0x07		Reserved for debugger breakpoints.
debugger	s_trap 0x08		Reserved for debugger.
debugger	s_trap 0xfe		Reserved for debugger.
debugger	s_trap 0xff		Reserved for debugger.

Non-AMDHSA

Trap Handler ABI

For code objects generated by AMDGPU backend for non-amdhsa OS, the runtime does not install a trap handler. The llvm.trap and llvm.debugtrap instructions are handled as follows:

AMDGPU Trap Handler for Non-AMDHSA OS

Usage	Code Sequence	Description
llvm.trap	s_endpgm	Causes wavefront to be terminated.
llvm.debugtrap	none	Compiler warning given that there is no trap handler installed.

Source Languages

OpenCL

When generating code for the OpenCL language the target triple environment should be opencl or amdgizcl (see Target Triples).

When the language is OpenCL the following differences occur:

1. The OpenCL memory model is used (see Memory Model).

2. The AMDGPU backend adds additional arguments to the kernel.

3. Additional metadata is generated (Code Object Metadata).

HCC

When generating code for the OpenCL language the target triple environment should be hcc (see Target Triples).

When the language is OpenCL the following differences occur:

1. The HSA memory model is used (see Memory Model).

Assembler

AMDGPU backend has LLVM-MC based assembler which is currently in development. It supports AMDGCN GFX6-GFX8.

This section describes general syntax for instructions and operands. For more information about instructions, their semantics and supported combinations of operands, refer to one of instruction set architecture manuals [AMD-Souther-Islands] [AMD-Sea-Islands] [AMD-Volcanic-Islands].

An instruction has the following syntax (register operands are normally comma-separated while extra operands are space-separated):

<opcode> <register_operand0>, … <extra_operand0> …

Operands

The following syntax for register operands is supported:

• SGPR registers: s0, … or s[0], …

• VGPR registers: v0, … or v[0], …

• TTMP registers: ttmp0, … or ttmp[0], …

• Special registers: exec (exec_lo, exec_hi), vcc (vcc_lo, vcc_hi), flat_scratch (flat_scratch_lo, flat_scratch_hi)

• Special trap registers: tba (tba_lo, tba_hi), tma (tma_lo, tma_hi)

• Register pairs, quads, etc: s[2:3], v[10:11], ttmp[5:6], s[4:7], v[12:15], ttmp[4:7], s[8:15], …

• Register lists: [s0, s1], [ttmp0, ttmp1, ttmp2, ttmp3]

• Register index expressions: v[2*2], s[1-1:2-1]

• ‘off’ indicates that an operand is not enabled

The following extra operands are supported:

• offset, offset0, offset1

• idxen, offen bits

• glc, slc, tfe bits

• waitcnt: integer or combination of counter values

• VOP3 modifiers:

  • abs (| |), neg (-)

• DPP modifiers:

  • row_shl, row_shr, row_ror, row_rol

  • row_mirror, row_half_mirror, row_bcast

  • wave_shl, wave_shr, wave_ror, wave_rol, quad_perm

  • row_mask, bank_mask, bound_ctrl

• SDWA modifiers:

  • dst_sel, src0_sel, src1_sel (BYTE_N, WORD_M, DWORD)

  • dst_unused (UNUSED_PAD, UNUSED_SEXT, UNUSED_PRESERVE)

  • abs, neg, sext

Instruction Examples

DS

ds_add_u32 v2, v4 offset:16
ds_write_src2_b64 v2 offset0:4 offset1:8
ds_cmpst_f32 v2, v4, v6
ds_min_rtn_f64 v[8:9], v2, v[4:5]

For full list of supported instructions, refer to “LDS/GDS instructions” in ISA Manual.

FLAT

flat_load_dword v1, v[3:4]
flat_store_dwordx3 v[3:4], v[5:7]
flat_atomic_swap v1, v[3:4], v5 glc
flat_atomic_cmpswap v1, v[3:4], v[5:6] glc slc
flat_atomic_fmax_x2 v[1:2], v[3:4], v[5:6] glc

For full list of supported instructions, refer to “FLAT instructions” in ISA Manual.

MUBUF

buffer_load_dword v1, off, s[4:7], s1
buffer_store_dwordx4 v[1:4], v2, ttmp[4:7], s1 offen offset:4 glc tfe
buffer_store_format_xy v[1:2], off, s[4:7], s1
buffer_wbinvl1
buffer_atomic_inc v1, v2, s[8:11], s4 idxen offset:4 slc

For full list of supported instructions, refer to “MUBUF Instructions” in ISA Manual.

SMRD/SMEM

s_load_dword s1, s[2:3], 0xfc
s_load_dwordx8 s[8:15], s[2:3], s4
s_load_dwordx16 s[88:103], s[2:3], s4
s_dcache_inv_vol
s_memtime s[4:5]

For full list of supported instructions, refer to “Scalar Memory Operations” in ISA Manual.

SOP1

s_mov_b32 s1, s2
s_mov_b64 s[0:1], 0x80000000
s_cmov_b32 s1, 200
s_wqm_b64 s[2:3], s[4:5]
s_bcnt0_i32_b64 s1, s[2:3]
s_swappc_b64 s[2:3], s[4:5]
s_cbranch_join s[4:5]

For full list of supported instructions, refer to “SOP1 Instructions” in ISA Manual.

SOP2

s_add_u32 s1, s2, s3
s_and_b64 s[2:3], s[4:5], s[6:7]
s_cselect_b32 s1, s2, s3
s_andn2_b32 s2, s4, s6
s_lshr_b64 s[2:3], s[4:5], s6
s_ashr_i32 s2, s4, s6
s_bfm_b64 s[2:3], s4, s6
s_bfe_i64 s[2:3], s[4:5], s6
s_cbranch_g_fork s[4:5], s[6:7]

For full list of supported instructions, refer to “SOP2 Instructions” in ISA Manual.

SOPC

s_cmp_eq_i32 s1, s2
s_bitcmp1_b32 s1, s2
s_bitcmp0_b64 s[2:3], s4
s_setvskip s3, s5

For full list of supported instructions, refer to “SOPC Instructions” in ISA Manual.

SOPP

s_barrier
s_nop 2
s_endpgm
s_waitcnt 0 ; Wait for all counters to be 0
s_waitcnt vmcnt(0) & expcnt(0) & lgkmcnt(0) ; Equivalent to above
s_waitcnt vmcnt(1) ; Wait for vmcnt counter to be 1.
s_sethalt 9
s_sleep 10
s_sendmsg 0x1
s_sendmsg sendmsg(MSG_INTERRUPT)
s_trap 1

For full list of supported instructions, refer to “SOPP Instructions” in ISA Manual.

Unless otherwise mentioned, little verification is performed on the operands of SOPP Instructions, so it is up to the programmer to be familiar with the range or acceptable values.

VALU

For vector ALU instruction opcodes (VOP1, VOP2, VOP3, VOPC, VOP_DPP, VOP_SDWA), the assembler will automatically use optimal encoding based on its operands. To force specific encoding, one can add a suffix to the opcode of the instruction:

• _e32 for 32-bit VOP1/VOP2/VOPC

• _e64 for 64-bit VOP3

• _dpp for VOP_DPP

• _sdwa for VOP_SDWA

VOP1/VOP2/VOP3/VOPC examples:

v_mov_b32 v1, v2
v_mov_b32_e32 v1, v2
v_nop
v_cvt_f64_i32_e32 v[1:2], v2
v_floor_f32_e32 v1, v2
v_bfrev_b32_e32 v1, v2
v_add_f32_e32 v1, v2, v3
v_mul_i32_i24_e64 v1, v2, 3
v_mul_i32_i24_e32 v1, -3, v3
v_mul_i32_i24_e32 v1, -100, v3
v_addc_u32 v1, s[0:1], v2, v3, s[2:3]
v_max_f16_e32 v1, v2, v3

VOP_DPP examples:

v_mov_b32 v0, v0 quad_perm:[0,2,1,1]
v_sin_f32 v0, v0 row_shl:1 row_mask:0xa bank_mask:0x1 bound_ctrl:0
v_mov_b32 v0, v0 wave_shl:1
v_mov_b32 v0, v0 row_mirror
v_mov_b32 v0, v0 row_bcast:31
v_mov_b32 v0, v0 quad_perm:[1,3,0,1] row_mask:0xa bank_mask:0x1 bound_ctrl:0
v_add_f32 v0, v0, |v0| row_shl:1 row_mask:0xa bank_mask:0x1 bound_ctrl:0
v_max_f16 v1, v2, v3 row_shl:1 row_mask:0xa bank_mask:0x1 bound_ctrl:0

VOP_SDWA examples:

v_mov_b32 v1, v2 dst_sel:BYTE_0 dst_unused:UNUSED_PRESERVE src0_sel:DWORD
v_min_u32 v200, v200, v1 dst_sel:WORD_1 dst_unused:UNUSED_PAD src0_sel:BYTE_1 src1_sel:DWORD
v_sin_f32 v0, v0 dst_unused:UNUSED_PAD src0_sel:WORD_1
v_fract_f32 v0, |v0| dst_sel:DWORD dst_unused:UNUSED_PAD src0_sel:WORD_1
v_cmpx_le_u32 vcc, v1, v2 src0_sel:BYTE_2 src1_sel:WORD_0

For full list of supported instructions, refer to “Vector ALU instructions”.

HSA Code Object Directives

AMDGPU ABI defines auxiliary data in output code object. In assembly source, one can specify them with assembler directives.

.hsa_code_object_version major, minor

major and minor are integers that specify the version of the HSA code object that will be generated by the assembler.

.hsa_code_object_isa [major, minor, stepping, vendor, arch]

major, minor, and stepping are all integers that describe the instruction set architecture (ISA) version of the assembly program.

vendor and arch are quoted strings. vendor should always be equal to “AMD” and arch should always be equal to “AMDGPU”.

By default, the assembler will derive the ISA version, vendor, and arch from the value of the -mcpu option that is passed to the assembler.

.amdgpu_hsa_kernel (name)

This directives specifies that the symbol with given name is a kernel entry point (label) and the object should contain corresponding symbol of type STT_AMDGPU_HSA_KERNEL.

.amd_kernel_code_t

This directive marks the beginning of a list of key / value pairs that are used to specify the amd_kernel_code_t object that will be emitted by the assembler. The list must be terminated by the .end_amd_kernel_code_t directive. For any amd_kernel_code_t values that are unspecified a default value will be used. The default value for all keys is 0, with the following exceptions:

• kernel_code_version_major defaults to 1.

• machine_kind defaults to 1.

• machine_version_major, machine_version_minor, and machine_version_stepping are derived from the value of the -mcpu option that is passed to the assembler.

• kernel_code_entry_byte_offset defaults to 256.

• wavefront_size defaults to 6.

• kernarg_segment_alignment, group_segment_alignment, and private_segment_alignment default to 4. Note that alignments are specified as a power of two, so a value of n means an alignment of 2^ n.

The .amd_kernel_code_t directive must be placed immediately after the function label and before any instructions.

For a full list of amd_kernel_code_t keys, refer to AMDGPU ABI document, comments in lib/Target/AMDGPU/AmdKernelCodeT.h and test/CodeGen/AMDGPU/hsa.s.

Here is an example of a minimal amd_kernel_code_t specification:

.hsa_code_object_version 1,0
.hsa_code_object_isa

.hsatext
.globl  hello_world
.p2align 8
.amdgpu_hsa_kernel hello_world

hello_world:

   .amd_kernel_code_t
      enable_sgpr_kernarg_segment_ptr = 1
      is_ptr64 = 1
      compute_pgm_rsrc1_vgprs = 0
      compute_pgm_rsrc1_sgprs = 0
      compute_pgm_rsrc2_user_sgpr = 2
      kernarg_segment_byte_size = 8
      wavefront_sgpr_count = 2
      workitem_vgpr_count = 3
  .end_amd_kernel_code_t

  s_load_dwordx2 s[0:1], s[0:1] 0x0
  v_mov_b32 v0, 3.14159
  s_waitcnt lgkmcnt(0)
  v_mov_b32 v1, s0
  v_mov_b32 v2, s1
  flat_store_dword v[1:2], v0
  s_endpgm
.Lfunc_end0:
     .size   hello_world, .Lfunc_end0-hello_world

Additional Documentation

AMD-R6xx

AMD R6xx shader ISA

AMD-R7xx

AMD R7xx shader ISA

AMD-Evergreen

AMD Evergreen shader ISA

AMD-Cayman-Trinity

AMD Cayman/Trinity shader ISA

AMD-Souther-Islands(1,2)

AMD Southern Islands Series ISA

AMD-Sea-Islands(1,2)

AMD Sea Islands Series ISA

AMD-Volcanic-Islands(1,2)

AMD GCN3 Instruction Set Architecture

AMD-OpenCL_Programming-Guide

AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing OpenCL Programming Guide

AMD-APP-SDK

AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing APP SDK Documentation

AMD-ROCm(1,2,3,4)

ROCm: Open Platform for Development, Discovery and Education Around GPU Computing

AMD-ROCm-github(1,2)

ROCm github

HSA(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)

Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundation

ELF(1,2)

Executable and Linkable Format (ELF)

DWARF

DWARF Debugging Information Format

YAML

YAML Ain’t Markup Language (YAML™) Version 1.2

OpenCL(1,2)

The OpenCL Specification Version 2.0

HRF

Heterogeneous-race-free Memory Models

AMD-AMDGPU-Compute-Application-Binary-Interface

AMDGPU Compute Application Binary Interface