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Trigonometric functions with FPU

Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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Hello, 

 

I'm trying to reduce the latency of my arithmetic operations. For that purpose i The CUSTOM FPU INSTRUCTION to my Nios. I've enabled HW and DIV at NIOS2-F. 

Using this Custom Instruction i can get good performance when doing MUL, ADD, SUB, SQRT and DIV operations. 

Now, i want to use some complex sin,atan, cos instruction. 

I have tested sin/cos/atan with/without hardware FPU. The performance is the same. 

When i look to objdump file, the custom functions are not called. 

Is there any configuration I need to set? I'm using Quartus 15 and eclipse. 

 

Thanks in advance, 

 

Best regards,
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
597 Views

Are you using Floating Point Hardware 2? 

 

I think the CI only support 18 Floating point operations, refer to table 6 of https://www.altera.com/content/dam/altera-www/global/en_us/others/literature/ug/ug_fph2.pdf

 

Trigonometry operations are not part of the 18 floating point operations and as such the performance is not good.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
597 Views

Thank you mikedsouze for you answer. 

Yes i'm using Floating Point Hardware 2 

 

 

--- Quote Start ---  

i think the ci only support 18 floating point operations 

--- Quote End ---  

 

 

Yes, I think you are right. 

 

Now i tried to use the Altera Floating Point Megafunctions ( SINE, ATAN,COS) as a custom instruction.  

First of all, i generated the VHDL codes, then i added them as a custom instruction to the NIOS2. 

In the "system.h"# define macro declarations was generated for each function like this: 

 

# define alt_ci_ci_fp_atan_0(a,b) __builtin_custom_inii(alt_ci_ci_fp_atan_0_n,(a),(b)) 

# define alt_ci_ci_fp_atan_0_n 0x2 

# define alt_ci_ci_fp_cosine_0(a) __builtin_custom_ini(alt_ci_ci_fp_cosine_0_n,(a)) 

# define alt_ci_ci_fp_cosine_0_n 0x1 

# define alt_ci_ci_fp_sine_0(a) __builtin_custom_ini(alt_ci_ci_fp_sine_0_n,(a)) 

# define alt_ci_ci_fp_sine_0_n 0x3 

 

Unfortunately, it doesn't work. I don't know if what i did is possible or not. 

Thanks, 

 

Best regards
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
597 Views

You ought to be able to compile the trig function library routines to use the custom instructions internally. 

That might give enough of a performance boost.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
597 Views

I would suggest to you to try to invoke the function directly in your C code. 

 

In your C: 

# include "system.h" 

 

then in your main: 

result_cos = ALT_CI_CI_FP_COSINE_0(a); 

 

Reason is that I have a feeling that the compiler is unable to map the new operations to the newlib. You could try to recompile newlib, rebuild BSP folder.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
597 Views

Thank you dsl & mikedsouze for your answer. 

 

@dsl: 

--- Quote Start ---  

you ought to be able to compile the trig function library routines to use the custom instructions internally. 

--- Quote End ---  

 

How can I do that ? 

 

@mikedsouze :  

--- Quote Start ---  

reason is that i have a feeling that the compiler is unable to map the new operations to the newlib. you could try to recompile newlib, rebuild bsp folder. 

--- Quote End ---  

 

I have a newlib generated with the BSP but it's empty. Is there any configuration special to do in eclipse to recompile newlib ? 

 

Sorry for wasting your time. 

 

Best regards
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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Found somewhere regarding custom instruction: http://www.alterawiki.com/wiki/custom_instructions 

 

Also this:http://www.alterawiki.com/wiki/single-precision_-mcustom-*_options 

 

I think you need to define the -mcusom- GCC flags. 

 

-mcustom-fcoss=1 

-mcustom-fatans=2 

-mcustom-fsins=3
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
597 Views

Ok mikedsouze , thank you very much. 

I'll try your suggestion, i let you know. 

Best regards,
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