basic_RV32s: An Open-Source Microarchitectural Roadmap for RISC-V RV32I

Abstract

This paper introduces BASIC_RV32s, an open-source framework providing a practical microarchitectural roadmap for the RISC-V RV32I architecture, addressing the gap between theoretical knowledge and hardware implementation. Following the classic Patterson and Hennessy methodology, the design evolves from a basic single-cycle core to a 5-stage pipelined core design with full hazard forwarding, dynamic branch prediction, and exception handling. For verification, the final core design is integrated into a System-on-Chip (SoC) with Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter (UART) communication implemented on a Xilinx Artix-7 Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), achieving 1.09 Dhrystone million instructions per second per megahertz (DMIPS/MHz) at 50 MHz. By releasing all Register-Transfer Level (RTL) source code, signal-level logic block diagrams, and development logs under MIT license on GitHub, BASIC_RV32s offers a reproducible instructional pathway for the open-source hardware ecosystem.