Kenning platforms

Kenning platforms were created to automatically provide board-specific arguments and parameters required for various stages of Kenning pipelines. It is used to:

  • Provide information on platforms’ constraints, such as RAM size

  • Provide information for optimizing the model using compilers such as TVM or IREE

  • Provide information on supported target runtime (Linux-based, bare metal or Zephyr-based)

  • Provide information on building the target evaluation application

  • Provide information on interfacing with the target platform (e.g. via UART)

Specification

Platforms’ definitions should be written in YAML or JSON file representing a dictionary, where:

  • keys are the unique boards’ IDs

  • values are dictionaries with board-specific parameters.

The example specification of platforms looks as follows:

max32690evkit/max32690/m4:
  display_name: MAX32690 Evaluation Kit
  flash_size_kb: 3072
  ram_size_kb: 128
  uart_port_wildcard: /dev/serial/by-id/usb-FTDI_FT231X_USB_UART_*-if00-port0
  uart_baudrate: 115200
  uart_log_baudrate: 115200
  compilation_flags:
  - "-keys=arm_cpu,cpu"
  - "-device=arm_cpu"
  - "-march=armv7e-m"
  - "-mcpu=cortex-m4"
  - "-model=max32690"
  openocd_flash_cmd:
  - source [find interface/cmsis-dap.cfg]
  - source [find target/max32690.cfg]
  - init
  - targets
  - reset init
  - flash write_image erase {binary_path}
  - reset run
  - shutdown
  platform_resc_path: gh://antmicro:kenning-zephyr-runtime/renode/scripts/max32690evkit.resc;branch=main
  default_platform: ZephyrPlatform

max32690fthr/max32690/m4:
  display_name: MAX32690FTHR
  flash_size_kb: 3072
  ram_size_kb: 128
  uart_baudrate: 115200
  uart_log_baudrate: 115200
  compilation_flags:
  - "-keys=arm_cpu,cpu"
  - "-device=arm_cpu"
  - "-march=armv7e-m"
  - "-mcpu=cortex-m4"
  - "-model=max32690"
  platform_resc_path: gh://antmicro:kenning-zephyr-runtime/renode/scripts/max32690fthr.resc;branch=main
  default_platform: ZephyrPlatform

rv32-springbok:
  display_name: RISC-V 32-bit Springbok
  runtime_binary_path: kenning:///renode/springbok/iree_runtime
  platform_resc_path: gh://antmicro:kenning-bare-metal-iree-runtime/sim/config/springbok.resc;branch=main
  resc_dependencies:
  - gh://antmicro:kenning-bare-metal-iree-runtime/sim/config/platforms/springbok.repl;branch=main
  - gh://antmicro:iree-rv32-springbok/sim/config/infrastructure/SpringbokRiscV32.cs;branch=repo-as-submodule
  post_start_commands:
  - sysbus.vec_controlblock WriteDoubleWord 0xc 0
  runtime_log_init_msg: Runtime started
  default_platform: BareMetalPlatform

stm32f746g_disco:
  display_name: STM32F746G Discovery
  flash_size_kb: 1024
  ram_size_kb: 256
  uart_baudrate: 115200
  platform_resc_path: gh://antmicro:kenning-zephyr-runtime/renode/scripts/stm32f746g_disco.resc;branch=main
  default_platform: ZephyrPlatform

hifive_unmatched/fu740/s7:
  display_name: HiFive Unmatched
  uart_baudrate: 115200
  platform_resc_path: gh://antmicro:kenning-zephyr-runtime/renode/scripts/hifive_unmatched.resc;branch=main
  default_platform: ZephyrPlatform

Looking at MAX32690 platform there are fields for:

  • TVM compilation (compilation_flags),

  • flashing to HW (openocd_flash_cmd),

  • simulation (platform_resc_path),

  • defining model constrains (flash_size_kb, ram_size_kb),

  • automatically finding its UART port (uart_port_wildcard) and specifying its baud rate (uart_baudrate, uart_log_baudrate),

  • choosing the platform type (default_platform).

Other parameters with descriptions can be found e.g. in:

Generating definitions for boards supported by Zephyr RTOS

Kenning provides a generate-platforms subcommand that allows to generate definitions of platforms based on given sources. Currently, the only supported sources of information are Zephyr RTOS device trees.

In order to generate definitions, fully set-up Zephyr repository with SDK is required. For detailed information on how to set up the SDK, follow Zephyr documentation.

Based on Docker image for Kenning Zephyr Runtime, it boils down to:

docker run --rm -it -v $(pwd):$(pwd) -w $(pwd) ghcr.io/antmicro/kenning-zephyr-runtime:latest /bin/bash
git clone https://github.com/antmicro/kenning-zephyr-runtime
cd kenning-zephyr-runtime/
./scripts/prepare_zephyr_env.sh
# Install additional ARM toolchain
~/.local/opt/zephyr-sdk/setup.sh -t aarch64-zephyr-elf
source .venv/bin/activate
pip3 install 'kenning[zephyr] @ git+https://github.com/antmicro/kenning.git'

Note

Using existing Zephyr repository can be achieved by exporting ZEPHYR_BASE variable or providing --zephyr-base flag to the script. It can potentially require additional dependencies from kenning[zephyr].

Platform generation can be triggered with a following command:

kenning generate-platforms zephyr \
  --zephyr-base ../zephyr \
  --platforms ./platforms.yml

The script:

  • generates flat device trees using Zephyr CMake rules,

  • parses received device trees with dts2repl,

  • tries to find baudrate based on chosen console output,

  • tries to find compilation flags for ARM CPUs based on their names (from compatible parameter) and architectures returned by GCC for ARM (arm-zephyr-eabi-gcc and aarch64-zephyr-elf-gcc from Zephyr SDK),

  • calculates size of the flash based on chosen flash registers,

  • calculates size of the RAM based on chose sram and Zephyr’s memory-regions,

  • finds URL to the board image.

To use newly generated platforms, provide its path to the --platform-definitions flag in kenning command or directly in the scenario:

platform:
  type: ZephyrPlatform
  parameters:
    # Chooses the file with platform definition
    platforms_definitions: [./platforms.yml]
    # Chooses MAX32690 Evaluation Kit
    name: max32690evkit/max32690/m4
Last update: 2025-04-10