path: root/src/zicsr.adoc

[[csrinsts]]
== "Zicsr", Control and Status Register (CSR) Instructions, Version 2.0

RISC-V defines a separate address space of 4096 Control and Status
registers associated with each hart. This chapter defines the full set
of CSR instructions that operate on these CSRs.

[NOTE]
====
While CSRs are primarily used by the privileged architecture, there are
several uses in unprivileged code including for counters and timers, and
for floating-point status.

The counters and timers are no longer considered mandatory parts of the
standard base ISAs, and so the CSR instructions required to access them
have been moved out of <<rv32>> into this separate
chapter.
====

=== CSR Instructions

All CSR instructions atomically read-modify-write a single CSR, whose
CSR specifier is encoded in the 12-bit _csr_ field of the instruction
held in bits 31-20. The immediate forms use a 5-bit zero-extended
immediate encoded in the _rs1_ field.

include::images/wavedrom/csr-instr.adoc[]

The CSRRW (Atomic Read/Write CSR) instruction atomically swaps values in
the CSRs and integer registers. CSRRW reads the old value of the CSR,
zero-extends the value to XLEN bits, then writes it to integer register
_rd_. The initial value in _rs1_ is written to the CSR. If _rd_=`x0`,
then the instruction shall not read the CSR and shall not cause any of
the side effects that might occur on a CSR read.

The CSRRS (Atomic Read and Set Bits in CSR) instruction reads the value
of the CSR, zero-extends the value to XLEN bits, and writes it to
integer register _rd_. The initial value in integer register _rs1_ is
treated as a bit mask that specifies bit positions to be set in the CSR.
Any bit that is high in _rs1_ will cause the corresponding bit to be set
in the CSR, if that CSR bit is writable. Other bits in the CSR are not
explicitly written.

The CSRRC (Atomic Read and Clear Bits in CSR) instruction reads the
value of the CSR, zero-extends the value to XLEN bits, and writes it to
integer register _rd_. The initial value in integer register _rs1_ is
treated as a bit mask that specifies bit positions to be cleared in the
CSR. Any bit that is high in _rs1_ will cause the corresponding bit to
be cleared in the CSR, if that CSR bit is writable. Other bits in the
CSR are not explicitly written.

For both CSRRS and CSRRC, if _rs1_=`x0`, then the instruction will not
write to the CSR at all, and so shall not cause any of the side effects
that might otherwise occur on a CSR write, nor raise illegal instruction
exceptions on accesses to read-only CSRs. Both CSRRS and CSRRC always
read the addressed CSR and cause any read side effects regardless of
_rs1_ and _rd_ fields. Note that if _rs1_ specifies a register holding a
zero value other than `x0`, the instruction will still attempt to write
the unmodified value back to the CSR and will cause any attendant side
effects. A CSRRW with _rs1_=`x0` will attempt to write zero to the
destination CSR.

The CSRRWI, CSRRSI, and CSRRCI variants are similar to CSRRW, CSRRS, and
CSRRC respectively, except they update the CSR using an XLEN-bit value
obtained by zero-extending a 5-bit unsigned immediate (uimm[4:0]) field
encoded in the _rs1_ field instead of a value from an integer register.
For CSRRSI and CSRRCI, if the uimm[4:0] field is zero, then these
instructions will not write to the CSR, and shall not cause any of the
side effects that might otherwise occur on a CSR write, nor raise
illegal instruction exceptions on accesses to read-only CSRs. For
CSRRWI, if _rd_=`x0`, then the instruction shall not read the CSR and
shall not cause any of the side effects that might occur on a CSR read.
Both CSRRSI and CSRRCI will always read the CSR and cause any read side
effects regardless of _rd_ and _rs1_ fields.

[[csrsideeffects]]
.Conditions determining whether a CSR instruction reads or writes the specified CSR.
[%autowidth,float="center",align="center",cols="<,^,^,^,^",options="header",]
|===
5+|Register operand 
|Instruction |_rd_ is `x0` |_rs1_ is `x0` |Reads CSR |Writes CSR

|CSRRW |Yes |- |No |Yes

|CSRRW |No |- |Yes |Yes

|CSRRS/CSRRC |- |Yes |Yes |No

|CSRRS/CSRRC |- |No |Yes |Yes

5+|Immediate operand 

|Instruction |_rd_ is `x0` |__uimm__latexmath:[$=$]0 |Reads CSR |Writes
CSR

|CSRRWI |Yes |- |No |Yes

|CSRRWI |No |- |Yes |Yes

|CSRRSI/CSRRCI |- |Yes |Yes |No

|CSRRSI/CSRRCI |- |No |Yes |Yes
|===

<<csrsideeffects>> summarizes the behavior of the CSR
instructions with respect to whether they read and/or write the CSR.

For any event or consequence that occurs due to a CSR having a
particular value, if a write to the CSR gives it that value, the
resulting event or consequence is said to be an _indirect effect_ of the
write. Indirect effects of a CSR write are not considered by the RISC-V
ISA to be side effects of that write.
[NOTE]
====
An example of side effects for CSR accesses would be if reading from a
specific CSR causes a light bulb to turn on, while writing an odd value
to the same CSR causes the light to turn off. Assume writing an even
value has no effect. In this case, both the read and write have side
effects controlling whether the bulb is lit, as this condition is not
determined solely from the CSR value. (Note that after writing an odd
value to the CSR to turn off the light, then reading to turn the light
on, writing again the same odd value causes the light to turn off again.
Hence, on the last write, it is not a change in the CSR value that turns
off the light.)

On the other hand, if a bulb is rigged to light whenever the value of a
particular CSR is odd, then turning the light on and off is not
considered a side effect of writing to the CSR but merely an indirect
effect of such writes.

More concretely, the RISC-V privileged architecture defined in Volume II
specifies that certain combinations of CSR values cause a trap to occur.
When an explicit write to a CSR creates the conditions that trigger the
trap, the trap is not considered a side effect of the write but merely
an indirect effect.

Standard CSRs do not have any side effects on reads. Standard CSRs may
have side effects on writes. Custom extensions might add CSRs for which
accesses have side effects on either reads or writes.
====
Some CSRs, such as the instructions-retired counter, `instret`, may be
modified as side effects of instruction execution. In these cases, if a
CSR access instruction reads a CSR, it reads the value prior to the
execution of the instruction. If a CSR access instruction writes such a
CSR, the write is done instead of the increment. In particular, a value
written to `instret` by one instruction will be the value read by the
following instruction.

The assembler pseudoinstruction to read a CSR, CSRR _rd, csr_, is
encoded as CSRRS _rd, csr, x0_. The assembler pseudoinstruction to write
a CSR, CSRW _csr, rs1_, is encoded as CSRRW _x0, csr, rs1_, while CSRWI
_csr, uimm_, is encoded as CSRRWI _x0, csr, uimm_.

Further assembler pseudoinstructions are defined to set and clear bits
in the CSR when the old value is not required: CSRS/CSRC _csr, rs1_;
CSRSI/CSRCI _csr, uimm_.

==== CSR Access Ordering

Each RISC-V hart normally observes its own CSR accesses, including its
implicit CSR accesses, as performed in program order. In particular,
unless specified otherwise, a CSR access is performed after the
execution of any prior instructions in program order whose behavior
modifies or is modified by the CSR state and before the execution of any
subsequent instructions in program order whose behavior modifies or is
modified by the CSR state. Furthermore, an explicit CSR read returns the
CSR state before the execution of the instruction, while an explicit CSR
write suppresses and overrides any implicit writes or modifications to
the same CSR by the same instruction.

Likewise, any side effects from an explicit CSR access are normally
observed to occur synchronously in program order. Unless specified
otherwise, the full consequences of any such side effects are observable
by the very next instruction, and no consequences may be observed
out-of-order by preceding instructions. (Note the distinction made
earlier between side effects and indirect effects of CSR writes.)

For the RVWMO memory consistency model (<<memorymodel>>), CSR accesses are weakly
ordered by default, so other harts or devices may observe CSR accesses
in an order different from program order. In addition, CSR accesses are
not ordered with respect to explicit memory accesses, unless a CSR
access modifies the execution behavior of the instruction that performs
the explicit memory access or unless a CSR access and an explicit memory
access are ordered by either the syntactic dependencies defined by the
memory model or the ordering requirements defined by the Memory-Ordering
PMAs section in Volume II of this manual. To enforce ordering in all
other cases, software should execute a FENCE instruction between the
relevant accesses. For the purposes of the FENCE instruction, CSR read
accesses are classified as device input (I), and CSR write accesses are
classified as device output (O).
[NOTE]
====
Informally, the CSR space acts as a weakly ordered memory-mapped I/O
region, as defined by the Memory-Ordering PMAs section in Volume II of
this manual. As a result, the order of CSR accesses with respect to all
other accesses is constrained by the same mechanisms that constrain the
order of memory-mapped I/O accesses to such a region.

These CSR-ordering constraints are imposed to support ordering main
memory and memory-mapped I/O accesses with respect to CSR accesses that
are visible to, or affected by, devices or other harts. Examples include
the `time`, `cycle`, and `mcycle` CSRs, in addition to CSRs that reflect
pending interrupts, like `mip` and `sip`. Note that implicit reads of
such CSRs (e.g., taking an interrupt because of a change in `mip`) are
also ordered as device input.

Most CSRs (including, e.g., the `fcsr`) are not visible to other harts;
their accesses can be freely reordered in the global memory order with
respect to FENCE instructions without violating this specification.
====
The hardware platform may define that accesses to certain CSRs are
strongly ordered, as defined by the Memory-Ordering PMAs section in
Volume II of this manual. Accesses to strongly ordered CSRs have
stronger ordering constraints with respect to accesses to both weakly
ordered CSRs and accesses to memory-mapped I/O regions.

[NOTE]
====
The rules for the reordering of CSR accesses in the global memory order
should probably be moved to <<memorymodel>> concerning the RVWMO memory consistency model.
====