RISC-V Design · All levels
Instruction Encoding and Format Families: Comparison Matrix
Comparison Matrix for Instruction Encoding and Format Families.
Comparison matrix
Comparison Matrix for Instruction Encoding and Format Families is anchored on Decode critical-path depth, immediate-generation logic complexity, and illegal-instruction detection coverage.. Convert observations into mechanism-backed decisions with explicit ownership.
diagram
RISC-V EVIDENCE MATRIX - Instruction Encoding and Format Families
+--------------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+---------------------------+
| Evidence | Tells you | Does not prove | Next action |
+--------------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+---------------------------+
| perf counter timeline | where regression appears | exact mechanism causality | correlate with trace |
| decode/control dump | control intent per instruction | pipeline side-effect ordering | inspect retire semantics |
| trap + CSR logs | privilege/fault behavior | performance bottleneck alone | pair with CPI buckets |
| MMU/TLB walk trace | translation behavior | full system QoS impact | test mixed workloads |
| post-fix trend graph | movement after fix | long-term stability | run stress matrix |
+--------------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+---------------------------+