RISC-V Design · All levels

Privilege Levels, Execution Modes, and Delegation Boundaries: Pitfalls and Red Flags

Pitfalls and Red Flags for Privilege Levels, Execution Modes, and Delegation Boundaries.

Pitfalls and red flags

Pitfalls and Red Flags for Privilege Levels, Execution Modes, and Delegation Boundaries is anchored on Privilege-transition latency and number of unauthorized accesses blocked by PMP/page-permission checks per billion instructions.. Convert observations into mechanism-backed decisions with explicit ownership.

  • Tuning knobs without proving first failing mechanism.

  • Ignoring privilege, trap, and memory-protection side effects.

  • Mixing extension profiles across benchmark runs.

  • Shipping on one benchmark uplift without stress replay.