XCC Target-Dependent Behavior for XS1 Devices¶

This section describes behavior of the XMOS compiler collection that is specific to the XS1 architecture.

Support for Clock Blocks¶

An XS1 device provides a single reference clock that ticks at a frequency derived from an external oscillior. XC requires the system designer to ensure that the reference clock ticks at 100MHz for correct operation of timers.

Each xCORE Tile provides a set of programmable clock blocks, which can be used to produce clock signals for ports. A clock block can use either a 1-bit port or a divided reference clock.

The <xs1.h> header file includes a clock type definition. A variable of type clock, not declared extern, must be initialized with an expression representing a clock block, for example:

clock c = XS1_CLKBLK_1;

The number of clock blocks available is given in the device datasheet. Their names are as the above declaration, numbered sequentially from 1.

In XC, the clock type is a resource type, with the following additional rules:

A structure may declare members of type clock. Variables of a structure with type clock may be declared only as external declarations.
A variable declaration prefixed with on may declare an object of type clock.
Automatic variables may not be declared with type clock.

Support for Ports¶

The XC port declaration

port p;

declares a raw port. On XS1 devices, all ports used for inputting and outputting data are clocked by a 100MHz reference clock (see Support for Clock Blocks) and use a single-entry buffer, even if their declarations are not qualified with the keyword buffered.

The table in I/O operations supported on XS1 ports can be used to determine which I/O operations are supported on XS1 ports, depending on whether or not the corresponding XC declaration is qualified with the keyword buffered.

I/O operations supported on XS1 ports¶
Mode	Operation
Mode	Serialization	Strobing	@when
Unqualified	N	N	N
Buffered	Y	Y	Y

The compiler detects and issues errors in the following cases:

Serialization: A port not qualified with buffered is declared with a transfer width different from the port width.
Strobing: A port not qualified with buffered is configured to use a ready-in or ready-out signal.
An input uses both @ and when: Both of these operators are used in an input statement with a port whose declaration is not qualified with buffered.

Serialization¶

Note that if serialization is used, the time specified by a timed input statement records the time at which the last bits of data are sampled. This can result in unexpected behaviour when serialization is used, since the construction

par {
  p @ t <: x;
  q @ t :> y;
}

causes the output on p to start at the same time as the input on q completes. To input and output this data in parallel, the input time should be offset in the software by an amount equal to the the transfer width divided by the port width.

Timestamping¶

The timestamp recorded by an input statement may come after the time when the data was sampled. This is because the XS1 provides separate instructions for inputting data and inputting the timestamp, so the timestamp can be input after the next data is sampled. This issue also affects output statements, but does not affect inputs performed in the guards of a select statement. The compiler inputs the timestamp immediately after executing an input or output instruction, so in practice this behaviour is rarely seen.

Changing Direction of Buffered Ports¶

An attempt to change the direction of a port qualified with buffered results in undefined behaviour.

Channel Communication¶

On some revisions of the XS1 architecture, it is not possible to input data of size less than 32 bits from a streaming channel in the guard of a select statement.

When compiling for the XS1-G architecture, the compiler disallows selecting on a channel input of less than a word-length in an XC streaming channel. The command line option -fsubword-select relaxes this restriction, but this can lead to cases with these functions not being taken even if data is available on the channel.
When compiling for the XS1-G architecture, the inuchar_byref, inct_byref and testct functions may not be used in an XC select statement. The command line option -fsubword-select relaxes this restriction, but this can lead to cases with these functions not being taken even if data is available on the channel.