RISC-V Weak Memory Ordering

Today’s @risc_v Tip:

RISC-V defines its memory model (RVWMO) in the context of 3 orderings:

  • Program Order: order of ops performed by a single hart
  • Global Memory Order: order of ops performed by all harts
  • Preserved Program Order: subset of program order respected globally

This diagram is an abstract example, but the key points are illustrated: memory operations appear to perform sequentially in the context of a single hart, but may not be observed in the same order globally. RVWMO defines which operations in a program order are respected globally.

RVWMO is specified by a series of preserved program order rules in the following categories:

  • Overlapping-Address Orderings
  • Explicit Synchronization
  • Syntactic Dependencies
  • Pipeline Dependencies

And memory model axioms:

  • Load Value Axiom
  • Atomicity Axiom
  • Progress Axiom

22-01-05

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