diff mbox series

[v9,01/13] Documentation: x86: Add AMD Hardware Feedback Interface documentation

Message ID 20250423014631.3224338-2-superm1@kernel.org
State New
Headers show
Series [v9,01/13] Documentation: x86: Add AMD Hardware Feedback Interface documentation | expand

Commit Message

Mario Limonciello April 23, 2025, 1:46 a.m. UTC
From: Perry Yuan <Perry.Yuan@amd.com>

Introduce a new documentation file, `amd_hfi.rst`, which delves into the
implementation details of the AMD Hardware Feedback Interface and its
associated driver, `amd_hfi`. This documentation describes how the
driver provides hint to the OS scheduling which depends on the capability
of core performance and efficiency ranking data.

This documentation describes
* The design of the driver
* How the driver provides hints to the OS scheduling
* How the driver interfaces with the kernel for efficiency ranking data.

Reviewed-by: Bagas Sanjaya <bagasdotme@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Perry Yuan <Perry.Yuan@amd.com>
Reviewed-by: Mario Limonciello <mario.limonciello@amd.com>
Signed-off-by: Mario Limonciello <mario.limonciello@amd.com>
---
v9:
 * Reflow to ~80 characters
 * Move higher in the index
 * 2024->2025
---
 Documentation/arch/x86/amd-hfi.rst | 133 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 Documentation/arch/x86/index.rst   |   1 +
 2 files changed, 134 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 Documentation/arch/x86/amd-hfi.rst

Comments

Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk April 28, 2025, 6:39 p.m. UTC | #1
..snip..
> +Implementation details for Linux
> +--------------------------------
> +
> +The implementation of threads scheduling consists of the following steps:
> +
> +1. A thread is spawned and scheduled to the ideal core using the default
> +   heterogeneous scheduling policy.
> +2. The processor profiles thread execution and assigns an enumerated
> +   classification ID.
> +   This classification is communicated to the OS via logical processor
> +   scope MSR.
> +3. During the thread context switch out the operating system consumes the
> +   workload(WL) classification which resides in a logical processor scope MSR.
> +4. The OS triggers the hardware to clear its history by writing to an MSR,
> +   after consuming the WL classification and before switching in the new thread.
> +5. If due to the classification, ranking table, and processor availability,
> +   the thread is not on its ideal processor, the OS will then consider
> +   scheduling the thread on its ideal processor (if available).

Can you expand on 5) please?  The one patch in this patchset that
touches the process file just does an WRMSR.
diff mbox series

Patch

diff --git a/Documentation/arch/x86/amd-hfi.rst b/Documentation/arch/x86/amd-hfi.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..8c1799acb6fe6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/arch/x86/amd-hfi.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,133 @@ 
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+======================================================================
+Hardware Feedback Interface For Hetero Core Scheduling On AMD Platform
+======================================================================
+
+:Copyright: 2025 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
+
+:Author: Perry Yuan <perry.yuan@amd.com>
+:Author: Mario Limonciello <mario.limonciello@amd.com>
+
+Overview
+--------
+
+AMD Heterogeneous Core implementations are comprised of more than one
+architectural class and CPUs are comprised of cores of various efficiency and
+power capabilities: performance-oriented *classic cores* and power-efficient
+*dense cores*. As such, power management strategies must be designed to
+accommodate the complexities introduced by incorporating different core types.
+Heterogeneous systems can also extend to more than two architectural classes
+as well. The purpose of the scheduling feedback mechanism is to provide
+information to the operating system scheduler in real time such that the
+scheduler can direct threads to the optimal core.
+
+The goal of AMD's heterogeneous architecture is to attain power benefit by
+sending background thread to the dense cores while sending high priority
+threads to the classic cores. From a performance perspective, sending
+background threads to dense cores can free up power headroom and allow the
+classic cores to optimally service demanding threads. Furthermore, the area
+optimized nature of the dense cores allows for an increasing number of
+physical cores. This improved core density will have positive multithreaded
+performance impact.
+
+AMD Heterogeneous Core Driver
+-----------------------------
+
+The ``amd_hfi`` driver delivers the operating system a performance and energy
+efficiency capability data for each CPU in the system. The scheduler can use
+the ranking data from the HFI driver to make task placement decisions.
+
+Thread Classification and Ranking Table Interaction
+----------------------------------------------------
+
+The thread classification is used to select into a ranking table that
+describes an efficiency and performance ranking for each classification.
+
+Threads are classified during runtime into enumerated classes. The classes
+represent thread performance/power characteristics that may benefit from
+special scheduling behaviors. The below table depicts an example of thread
+classification and a preference where a given thread should be scheduled
+based on its thread class. The real time thread classification is consumed
+by the operating system and is used to inform the scheduler of where the
+thread should be placed.
+
+Thread Classification Example Table
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
++----------+----------------+-------------------------------+---------------------+---------+
+| class ID | Classification | Preferred scheduling behavior | Preemption priority | Counter |
++----------+----------------+-------------------------------+---------------------+---------+
+| 0        | Default        | Performant                    | Highest             |         |
++----------+----------------+-------------------------------+---------------------+---------+
+| 1        | Non-scalable   | Efficient                     | Lowest              | PMCx1A1 |
++----------+----------------+-------------------------------+---------------------+---------+
+| 2        | I/O bound      | Efficient                     | Lowest              | PMCx044 |
++----------+----------------+-------------------------------+---------------------+---------+
+
+Thread classification is performed by the hardware each time that the thread is switched out.
+Threads that don't meet any hardware specified criteria will be classified as "default".
+
+AMD Hardware Feedback Interface
+--------------------------------
+
+The Hardware Feedback Interface provides to the operating system information
+about the performance and energy efficiency of each CPU in the system. Each
+capability is given as a unit-less quantity in the range [0-255]. A higher
+performance value indicates higher performance capability, and a higher
+efficiency value indicates more efficiency. Energy efficiency and performance
+are reported in separate capabilities in the shared memory based ranking table.
+
+These capabilities may change at runtime as a result of changes in the
+operating conditions of the system or the action of external factors.
+Power Management FW is responsible for detecting events that would require
+a reordering of the performance and efficiency ranking. Table updates would
+happen relatively infrequently and occur on the time scale of seconds or more.
+
+The following events trigger a table update:
+    * Thermal Stress Events
+    * Silent Compute
+    * Extreme Low Battery Scenarios
+
+The kernel or a userspace policy daemon can use these capabilities to modify
+task placement decisions. For instance, if either the performance or energy
+capabilities of a given logical processor becomes zero, it is an indication
+that the hardware recommends to the operating system to not schedule any tasks
+on that processor for performance or energy efficiency reasons, respectively.
+
+Implementation details for Linux
+--------------------------------
+
+The implementation of threads scheduling consists of the following steps:
+
+1. A thread is spawned and scheduled to the ideal core using the default
+   heterogeneous scheduling policy.
+2. The processor profiles thread execution and assigns an enumerated
+   classification ID.
+   This classification is communicated to the OS via logical processor
+   scope MSR.
+3. During the thread context switch out the operating system consumes the
+   workload(WL) classification which resides in a logical processor scope MSR.
+4. The OS triggers the hardware to clear its history by writing to an MSR,
+   after consuming the WL classification and before switching in the new thread.
+5. If due to the classification, ranking table, and processor availability,
+   the thread is not on its ideal processor, the OS will then consider
+   scheduling the thread on its ideal processor (if available).
+
+Ranking Table
+-------------
+The ranking table is a shared memory region that is used to communicate the
+performance and energy efficiency capabilities of each CPU in the system.
+
+The ranking table design includes rankings for each APIC ID in the system and
+rankings both for performance and efficiency for each workload classification.
+
+.. kernel-doc:: drivers/platform/x86/amd/hfi/hfi.c
+   :doc: amd_shmem_info
+
+Ranking Table update
+---------------------------
+The power management firmware issues an platform interrupt after updating the
+ranking table and is ready for the operating system to consume it. CPUs receive
+such interrupt and read new ranking table from shared memory which PCCT table
+has provided, then ``amd_hfi`` driver parse the new table to provide new
+consume data for scheduling decisions.
diff --git a/Documentation/arch/x86/index.rst b/Documentation/arch/x86/index.rst
index 8ac64d7de4dc9..fb167e6bb9d52 100644
--- a/Documentation/arch/x86/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/arch/x86/index.rst
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@  x86-specific Documentation
    intel_txt
    amd-memory-encryption
    amd_hsmp
+   amd-hfi
    tdx
    pti
    mds