About the Book
✅ Master RISC-V Fundamentals: Grasp the core principles of the open RISC-V Instruction Set Architecture (ISA), including its philosophy, modularity through extensions, and key application areas.
✅ Develop Low-Level Proficiency: Deepen your understanding of hardware interactions, perform performance optimization, and gain skills in debugging and reverse engineering by learning RISC-V assembly.
✅ Navigate RISC-V Architecture: Understand privilege levels, the program counter, the integer register file, memory organization, and the different instruction formats that define the RISC-V architecture.
✅ Set Up Your Development Environment: Learn to install the RISC-V GNU toolchain (gcc, gas, ld, objdump), utilize emulators and simulators like Spike and QEMU TCG, and establish a basic assembly, compilation, linking, and execution workflow.
✅ Program with RV32I Base Instructions: Become proficient in using RV32I registers, data types, and all instruction formats (R, I, S, B, U, J-Type) for loads, stores, arithmetic, logic, shifts, and control flow.
✅ Employ Advanced Assembly Techniques: Utilize pseudo-instructions and assembler directives for efficient code writing, implement function calls using the RISC-V calling convention and stack management, and interact with the operating system through system calls.
✅ Adapt to RV64I Architecture: Understand the differences and additions in the 64-bit RV64I instruction set, including 64-bit registers, data types, new load/store instructions, and 64-bit arithmetic, enabling you to port and manage mixed 32-bit/64-bit data.
✅ Leverage the Integer Multiplication and Division Extension (M): Learn to use dedicated instructions for integer multiplication and division in both RV32M and RV64M, improving computational efficiency and understanding how to handle overflow.
✅ Explore the RISC-V Vector Extension (V): Grasp the principles of SIMD processing and the scalable nature of RVV. Understand vector registers, vector length configuration, and implement various vector load/store, arithmetic, logical, and shift operations.
✅ Apply Advanced Vector Programming: Utilize vector comparison, permutation, shuffle, and reduction instructions. Master masking and predication for conditional execution and gain an overview of vector intrinsics for high-level language integration.
✅ Integrate ISA and Extensions: Understand how to combine scalar and vector code effectively, use M and V extensions together for complex tasks like matrix multiplication, and manage calling conventions across different extensions.
✅ Debug and Profile RISC-V Code: Learn to use GDB for debugging, inspect extension-specific registers, and employ simulator features for performance analysis and identifying bottlenecks in your assembly code.
✅ Implement Practical Algorithms: Gain hands-on experience by implementing core algorithms like string manipulation and sorting in RV32/RV64 assembly, and vectorize common computational kernels for image processing and parallel reduction.
✅ Navigate the RISC-V Toolchain: Become proficient with the GNU Assembler (GAS) and Linker (LD) for RISC-V, understand linker scripts, and utilize object file utilities (objdump, readelf, nm) to manage your assembly projects effectively.
✅ Discover the Broader RISC-V Ecosystem: Get a brief overview of other important standard extensions like 'A' (Atomic), 'C' (Compressed), and 'F'/'D' (Floating-Point), and learn about the RISC-V documentation, community, and open-source projects.
