Introducing “The Architecture Speaks”

What are specifications used for? How do you use them? Are they intelligible? These questions are at the heart of the project that produces a new tool called "The Architecture Speaks". This is an experimental chatbot tool built on generative AI that aims to provide quick answers to complex questions about the Arm architecture. It also provides links to the Arm Architecture Reference Manual. 

The current landscape 

Arm regularly publishes architecture specifications. These help you find answers to questions about the behavior of all Arm-powered systems, from servers to sensors. 

An important example is the Arm Architecture Reference Manual (the Arm ARM), which describes Arm’s CPU architecture in great detail. The Arm ARM is written in rather technical, but not mathematically grounded, English prose. 

For example, you might ask about the Arm concurrency model. Arm supports and distributes the herd7 concurrency model tool to answer these questions. However, the answers remain in the prose of the Arm ARM. For example, the Arm ARM typically expresses these questions as litmus tests: 

AArch64 MP 

{ 

0:X1=x; 0:X3=y; 

1:X0=y; 1:X2=x; 

} 

P0 | P1 ; 

MOV W0,#1 | LDR W1,[X0] ; 

STR W0,[X1] | LDR W3,[X2] ; 

MOV W2,#1 | ; 

STR W2,[X3] | ; 

exists (1:X1=1 /\ 1:X3=0) 

This example shows how threads P0 and P1 communicate through shared memory locations x and y: 

- P0 stores the value 1 to x and sets the flag y with another store. 

- P1 loads the flag y and loads x. 

- If P1 reads the flag as set, can it still read the old value of x? 

Another example question for the Arm ARM could be about an instruction in the Arm ISA. For example: What does an LDR do? You can answer some aspects by reading the ASL1.0 code for LDR and using ASLRef tools to interpret and analyze it. However, the wider architecture definition remains in the Arm ARM prose. 

Therefore, the only way to fully answer architectural questions is to use the Arm ARM. This process takes time because you must interpret the prose and navigate a long document. The latest version is about 17,000 pages. 

What “The Architecture Speaks” does 

“The Architecture Speaks” is an experimental chatbot that helps you navigate the Arm ARM and answer questions about the architecture. As well answering questions, it provides links to specific sections in the Arm ARM.  

For example, when you input a query (e.g. "what does an LDR do?"), “The Architecture Speaks” gives an answer that is substantiated with links to relevant sections in the Arm ARM in HTML. 

“The Architecture Speaks” is still in the experimental phase, and might provide inaccurate answers. To improve accuracy, we are adding programmatic checks and safety nets, both before, during, and after answer generation. 

For example, when the tool claims that an excerpt is verbatim from the Arm ARM, we have steps in place to check that this is the case. We plan to add more checks, including some based on formal methods, in future versions. Therefore, you still need to verify the output by reading the referenced section of the Arm ARM. 

Currently, “The Architecture Speaks” answers questions only about the Arm ARM. We plan to extend it to also answer questions about other Arm materials, including the “Known Issues” document. 

Try it now! 

"The Architecture Speaks" is now available on developer.arm.com, and is released at Alpha quality as per Arm quality standards. This means that you should not use it in production flows. However, it provide useful guidance if you need to navigate the Arm ARM or answer technical questions in the documentation.  

We welcome feedback on the tool as we continue to develop it, including discrepancies between the source material and the answers given, or overall usability. 

You can send feedback to search-the-architecture@arm.com . 

Try out The Architecture Speaks now!