@@ -23,13 +23,14 @@ optional external memory-mapped interfac
Version 1 of the Activity Monitors architecture implements a counter group
of four fixed and architecturally defined 64-bit event counters.
- - CPU cycle counter: increments at the frequency of the CPU.
- - Constant counter: increments at the fixed frequency of the system
- clock.
- - Instructions retired: increments with every architecturally executed
- instruction.
- - Memory stall cycles: counts instruction dispatch stall cycles caused by
- misses in the last level cache within the clock domain.
+
+- CPU cycle counter: increments at the frequency of the CPU.
+- Constant counter: increments at the fixed frequency of the system
+ clock.
+- Instructions retired: increments with every architecturally executed
+ instruction.
+- Memory stall cycles: counts instruction dispatch stall cycles caused by
+ misses in the last level cache within the clock domain.
When in WFI or WFE these counters do not increment.
@@ -57,11 +58,12 @@ counters, only the presence of the exten
Firmware (code running at higher exception levels, e.g. arm-tf) support is
needed to:
- - Enable access for lower exception levels (EL2 and EL1) to the AMU
- registers.
- - Enable the counters. If not enabled these will read as 0.
- - Save/restore the counters before/after the CPU is being put/brought up
- from the 'off' power state.
+
+- Enable access for lower exception levels (EL2 and EL1) to the AMU
+ registers.
+- Enable the counters. If not enabled these will read as 0.
+- Save/restore the counters before/after the CPU is being put/brought up
+ from the 'off' power state.
When using kernels that have this feature enabled but boot with broken
firmware the user may experience panics or lockups when accessing the
@@ -78,10 +80,11 @@ are not trapped in EL2/EL3.
The fixed counters of AMUv1 are accessible though the following system
register definitions:
- - SYS_AMEVCNTR0_CORE_EL0
- - SYS_AMEVCNTR0_CONST_EL0
- - SYS_AMEVCNTR0_INST_RET_EL0
- - SYS_AMEVCNTR0_MEM_STALL_EL0
+
+- SYS_AMEVCNTR0_CORE_EL0
+- SYS_AMEVCNTR0_CONST_EL0
+- SYS_AMEVCNTR0_INST_RET_EL0
+- SYS_AMEVCNTR0_MEM_STALL_EL0
Auxiliary platform specific counters can be accessed using
SYS_AMEVCNTR1_EL0(n), where n is a value between 0 and 15.
@@ -93,9 +96,10 @@ Userspace access
----------------
Currently, access from userspace to the AMU registers is disabled due to:
- - Security reasons: they might expose information about code executed in
- secure mode.
- - Purpose: AMU counters are intended for system management use.
+
+- Security reasons: they might expose information about code executed in
+ secure mode.
+- Purpose: AMU counters are intended for system management use.
Also, the presence of the feature is not visible to userspace.
@@ -105,8 +109,9 @@ Virtualization
Currently, access from userspace (EL0) and kernelspace (EL1) on the KVM
guest side is disabled due to:
- - Security reasons: they might expose information about code executed
- by other guests or the host.
+
+- Security reasons: they might expose information about code executed
+ by other guests or the host.
Any attempt to access the AMU registers will result in an UNDEFINED
exception being injected into the guest.