Runtime errors
RTimothyEdwards opened this issue · 6 comments
Bear with me here, because I am trying to get RePlAce to work (1) in the context of qflow, and (2) as an executable installed in a standard install target, not with the executables contained within its own source directory tree. So I have skipped right over the examples and plunged into running it on a pre-placement DEF file of my own creation (which is ongoing work, because I am still discovering what information RePlAce needs to see in the input DEF file).
So for a first run, I have managed to get through the first global placement phase. I created an input DEF file and ran RePlAce with the following options (some of which I have very little understanding of, such as -bmflag and -dpflag):
RePlAce -bmflag ispd -lef /usr/local/share/qflow/tech/osu035/osu35_stdcells.lef -def map9v3.def -output output -dpflag NTU3 -dploc output
Running this, it got all the way to "Call NtuPlacer3". Just before it printed "Call NtuPlacer3", it output:
ln -s output output/ispd/map9v3/experiment000/tiers/0/
I don't get that at all, as that appears to make a recursive symbolic link to itself. Then the next thing it does is to do:
cd output/ispd/map9v3/experiment000/tiers/0 && ./ntuplace3 -aux map9v3.aux -loadpl map9v3.pl -util 1.00 -noglobal
Which fails immediately, as there is no "ntuplace3" in that directory. The indended "ntuplace3" is presumably the executable in the RePlAce source directory in ntuplace/ntuplace3. What was the intention of this command?
Hi Tim
You need to use -skipIP to run map9v3
You might want to refer to below github issue which was raised few weeks back
#15
I actually got RePlAce to run to completion, and it appears to have created a reasonable placement of my digital block. I did not need to use "-skipIP". However, I was unable to get the placement to run with NTU4, only with NTU3.
@RTimothyEdwards We committed a hello world test project in our PR with a standard input DEF, contributed by @kunalg123 .
The tool fails with a segm fault, but it's a good idea to run it first, since its input DEF was generated by a proven tool.
Replace crushes with Segmentation fault. Any ideas ?
The original issue was the failure to understand the meaning of the -dploc argument. This has since been fixed. I may post another issue related to the failure to run NTU4, which is apparently a different problem, since I can get NTU3 to work correctly now.
Sorry, I closed this issue before I saw your last comment (@tetra12). You might want to clone qflow-1.4 from the opencircuitdesign.com git repository (see the updated qflow web page, new since Dec. 25). I have resolved a number of errors in running RePlAce but there are others I have not worked through yet. The new qflow-1.4 puts a list of tools used in the flow in the project_vars.sh file, so it's trivially easy to switch between graywolf and RePlAce for the placement. The qflow GUI has a tool selection on the 1st flow step. To get RePlAce integrated into qflow, run "configure" with "--with-replace=" and a pointer to the source; e.g., I use "configure --with-replace=~/src/RePlAce/src". New features and behavior are not yet documented.
If you want to use this issue thread to discuss additional run-time problems, feel free to re-open the issue.
If you are getting a segfault, please post the RePlAce output so I can get a better idea what's going on. So far, I've found RePlAce to be pretty good about reporting errors.
Sorry for late reply.
The NTUplace4h requires *.route bookshelf file, but it is still not implemented yet. (so, It is only valid for Bookshelf benchmark).
For commercial benchmark (LEF/DEF/Verilog), the NTUPlace3 is the only possible Detail Placer.
The original issue was the failure to understand the meaning of the -dploc argument. This has since been fixed. I may post another issue related to the failure to run NTU4, which is apparently a different problem, since I can get NTU3 to work correctly now.