25 RV32/64G Instruction Set Listings
One goal of the RISC-V project is that it be used as a stable software development target. For this purpose, we define a combination of a base ISA (RV32I or RV64I) plus selected standard extensions (IMAFD, Zicsr, Zifencei) as a “general-purpose” ISA, and we use the abbreviation G for the IMAFDZicsr_Zifencei combination of instruction-set extensions. This chapter presents opcode maps and instruction-set listings for RV32G and RV64G.
Table [opcodemap] shows a map of the major opcodes for RVG. Major opcodes with 3 or more lower bits set are reserved for instruction lengths greater than 32 bits. Opcodes marked as reserved should be avoided for custom instruction-set extensions as they might be used by future standard extensions. Major opcodes marked as custom-0 and custom-1 will be avoided by future standard extensions and are recommended for use by custom instruction-set extensions within the base 32-bit instruction format. The opcodes marked custom-2/rv128 and custom-3/rv128 are reserved for future use by RV128, but will otherwise be avoided for standard extensions and so can also be used for custom instruction-set extensions in RV32 and RV64.
We believe RV32G and RV64G provide simple but complete instruction sets for a broad range of general-purpose computing. The optional compressed instruction set described in Chapter [compressed] can be added (forming RV32GC and RV64GC) to improve performance, code size, and energy efficiency, though with some additional hardware complexity.
As we move beyond IMAFDC into further instruction-set extensions, the added instructions tend to be more domain-specific and only provide benefits to a restricted class of applications, e.g., for multimedia or security. Unlike most commercial ISAs, the RISC-V ISA design clearly separates the base ISA and broadly applicable standard extensions from these more specialized additions. Chapter [extensions] has a more extensive discussion of ways to add extensions to the RISC-V ISA.
Table 1.1 lists the CSRs that have currently been allocated CSR addresses. The timers, counters, and floating-point CSRs are the only CSRs defined in this specification.
