Buckyball Project Structure Overview

Buckyball is a scalable framework for domain-specific architectures. The project adopts a modular design with clear directory responsibilities, supporting a complete toolchain from hardware design to software development.

Main Directory Structure

Core Architecture Module

• arch/ - Hardware architecture implementation, containing RTL code written in Scala/Chisel
  • Based on Rocket-chip and Chipyard framework
  • Implements custom RoCC coprocessors and memory subsystems
  • Supports various configuration and extension options

Test Verification Module

• bb-tests/ - Unified test framework
  • workloads/ - Application workload tests
  • customext/ - Custom extension verification
  • sardine/ - Sardine test framework
  • uvbb/ - Unit test suite

Simulation Environment Module

• sims/ - Simulators and verification environments
  • Supports Verilator, VCS and other simulators
  • Integrates FireSim FPGA accelerated simulation
  • Provides performance analysis and debugging tools

Development Tools Module

• scripts/ - Build and deployment scripts

  • Environment initialization scripts
  • Automated build tools
  • Dependency management and configuration

• workflow/ - Development workflows and automation

  • CI/CD pipeline configuration
  • Documentation generation tools
  • Code quality checks

Documentation System

• docs/ - Project documentation
  • bb-note/ - Technical documentation based on mdBook
  • img/ - Documentation image resources
  • Supports automatic generation and updates

Third-party Dependencies

• thirdparty/ - External dependency modules (submodules)
  • chipyard/ - Berkeley Chipyard SoC design framework
  • circt/ - CIRCT circuit compiler toolchain

Development Workflow

1. Environment Setup: Use scripts/init.sh to initialize the development environment
2. Architecture Development: Perform hardware design and modifications in the arch/ directory
3. Test Verification: Use test suites in bb-tests/ for functional verification
4. Simulation Debugging: Perform performance analysis through simulation environments in the sims/ directory
5. Documentation Updates: Automatically generate or manually update technical documentation in docs/

Build System

The project supports multiple build methods:

• Make: Traditional Makefile builds
• SBT: Scala project build tool
• CMake: Test framework build system
• Conda: Python environment and dependency management

Version Management Notes

• Submodules: Modules under thirdparty/ need independent updates
• Main Repository: Core code and configuration update synchronously with the main branch
• Documentation: Supports automatic generation, keeping in sync with code changes