Checksum code implementation for Neon in Intrinsics

Question

I'm trying to implement the checksum computation code(2's complement addition) for NEON, using intrinsic. The current checksum computation is being carried out on ARM.

My implementation fetches 128-bits at once from the memory into NEON registers and does SIMD (addition), and result is folded to a 16-bit number from a 128-bit number.

Everything looks to be working fine, but my NEON implementation is consuming more time that of the ARM version.

ARM version takes: 0.860000 s NEON version takes: 1.260000 s

Note:

1. Profiled using utilities from "time.h"
2. The checksum function called 10,000 times from a sample application, and time computed after complete run of all the functions

Other details:

1. Used GNU tool-chain(arm-none-linux-gnueabi-gcc) for compiling the intrinsic code and not arm tool-chain.
2. Linux platform.
3. C-intrinsic code.

Questions:

1. Why does NEON version take more time than that of the ARM version? (Although I have taken care that intrinsic with minimum cycles in the batch is used)

2. How do achieve what I want to achieve? (efficiency with NEON)

3. Could someone point to me or share some sample implementations(pseudo-code/algorithms/code, not the theoretical implementation papers or talks) which uses the inter-operations of ARM-NEON together?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Here's my code:

uint16_t do_csum(const unsigned char * buff, int len)
{
int odd, count, i;

uint32x4_t result = veorq_u32( result, result), sum = veorq_u32( sum, sum); 
uint16x4_t data, data_hi, data_low, data8;
uint16x8_t dataq;
uint16_t result16, disp[20] = {0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0};

if (len <= 0)
    goto out;
odd = 1 & (unsigned long) buff;
if (odd) {
    uint8x8_t data1 = veor_u8( data1, data1); 
    data1 = (uint16x4_t)vld1_lane_u8((uint8_t *)buff, data1, 0); //result = *buff << 8;
    data1 = (uint16x4_t)vshl_n_u16( data1, 8);

    len--;
    buff++;
    result = vaddw_u16(result, data1);
}
count = len >> 1;       /* nr of 16-bit words.. */
if (count) {
    if (2 & (unsigned long) buff) {
        uint16x4_t data2 = veor_u16( data2, data2); 
        data2 = (uint16x4_t) vld1_lane_u16((uint16_t *)buff, data2, 0); //result += *(unsigned short *) buff;
        count--;
        len -= 2;
        buff += 2;
        result = vaddw_u16( result, data2);
    }
    count >>= 1;        /* nr of 32-bit words.. */
    if (count) {
        if (4 & (unsigned long) buff) {
            uint32x2_t data4 = (uint16x4_t) vld1_lane_u32((uint32_t *) buff, data4, 0);
            count--;
            len -= 4;
            buff += 4;
            result = vaddw_u16( result, data4);
        }
        count >>= 1;    /* nr of 64-bit words.. */
        if (count) {
            if (8 & (unsigned long) buff) {
                uint64x1_t data8 = vld1_u64((uint64_t *) buff); 
                count--;
                len -= 8;
                buff += 8;
                result = vaddw_u16( result,(uint16x4_t)data8);
            }
            count >>= 1;    /* nr of 128-bit words.. */
            if (count) {
                do {
                    dataq = (uint16x8_t)vld1q_u64((uint64_t *) buff); // VLD1.64 {d0, d1}, [r0]
                    count--;
                    buff += 16;

                    sum = vpaddlq_u16(dataq);   
                    vst1q_u16( disp, dataq); // VST1.16 {d0, d1}, [r0]

                    result = vaddq_u32( sum, result);
                } while (count);
            }
            if (len & 8) {
                uint64x1_t data8 =  vld1_u64((uint64_t *) buff); 
                buff += 8;
                result = vaddw_u16( result, (uint16x4_t)data8);
            }
        }
        if (len & 4) {
            uint32x2_t data4 = veor_u32( data4, data4); 

            data4 = (uint16x4_t)vld1_lane_u32((uint32_t *) buff, data4, 0);//result += *(unsigned int *) buff;
            buff += 4;
            result = vaddw_u16( result,(uint16x4_t) data4);
        }
    }
    if (len & 2) {
        uint16x4_t data2 = veor_u16( data2, data2); 
        data2 = (uint16x4_t) vld1_lane_u16((uint16_t *)buff, data2, 0); //result += *(unsigned short *) buff;
        buff += 2;
        result = vaddw_u16( result, data2);
    }
}
if (len & 1){
    uint8x8_t data1 = veor_u8( data1, data1); 
    data1 = (uint16x4_t) vld1_lane_u8((uint8_t *)buff, data1, 0); //result = *buff << 8;
    result = vaddw_u8( result, data1);
}


result16 = from128to16(result);

if (odd)
    result16 = ((result16 >> 8) & 0xff) | ((result16 & 0xff) << 8);

out:
    return result16;
}

Answer 1

A few things you can improve:

• Get rid of the stores to disp - this looks like debug code that got left in ?
• Don't do horizontal addition within your main loop - just do partial (vertical) sums in the loop and do one final horizontal addition after the loop (see this answer for an example of how to do this - it's for SSE but the principle is the same)
• Make sure you use gcc -O3 ... to get maximum benefit from compiler optimisation
• Don't use goto ! (Doesn't affect performance but is evil.)