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.\"
.\" SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-2-Clause
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 2026, Netflix, Inc.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
.\"
.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
.\"
.Dd March 15, 2026
.Dt PMC.IBS 3
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm pmc.ibs
.Nd Instruction Based Sampling for
.Tn AMD
CPUs
.Sh LIBRARY
.Lb libpmc
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In pmc.h
.Sh DESCRIPTION
AMD Instruction Based Sampling (IBS) was introduced with the K10 family of
CPUs.
AMD IBS is an alternative approach that samples instructions or micro-ops and
provides a per-instruction or micro-op breakdown of the sources of stalls.
.Pp
Unlike traditional counters, IBS can only be used in the sampling mode and
provides extra data embedded in the callchain.
IBS events set the PMC_F_MULTIPART flag to signify multiple payload types are
contained in the callchain.
The first 8 bytes of the callchain contain four tuples with a one byte type and
a one byte length field.
The regular PMC callchain can be found following the multipart payload.
.Pp
IBS only provides two events that analyze instruction fetches and instruction
execution.
The instruction fetch (ibs-fetch) event provides data on the processor
front-end including reporting instruction cache and TLB events.
The instruction execution (ibs-op) event provides data on the processor
execution including reporting mispredictions, data cache and TLB events.
You should use the AMD PMC counters documented in
.Xr pmc.amd 3
to analyze stalls relating instruction issue including reservation contention.
.Pp
A guide to analyzing IBS data is provided in Appendix G of the
.Rs
.%B "Software Optimization Guide for AMD Family 10h and 12h Processors"
.%N "Publication No. 40546"
.%D "February 2011"
.%Q "Advanced Micro Devices, Inc."
.Re
A more recent document should be used for decoding all of the flags and fields
in the IBS data.
For example, see the AMD Zen 5 documentation
.Rs
.%B "Processor Programming Reference (PPR) for AMD Family 1Ah Model 02h"
.%N "Publication No. 57238"
.%D "March 6, 2026"
.%Q "Advanced Micro Devices, Inc."
.Re
.Ss PMC Features
AMD IBS supports the following capabilities.
.Bl -column "PMC_CAP_INTERRUPT" "Support"
.It Em Capability Ta Em Support
.It PMC_CAP_CASCADE Ta \&No
.It PMC_CAP_EDGE Ta Yes
.It PMC_CAP_INTERRUPT Ta Yes
.It PMC_CAP_INVERT Ta \&No
.It PMC_CAP_READ Ta \&No
.It PMC_CAP_PRECISE Ta Yes
.It PMC_CAP_SYSTEM Ta Yes
.It PMC_CAP_TAGGING Ta \&No
.It PMC_CAP_THRESHOLD Ta \&No
.It PMC_CAP_USER Ta \&No
.It PMC_CAP_WRITE Ta \&No
.El
.Pp
By default AMD IBS enables the edge, interrupt, system and precise flags.
.Ss Event Qualifiers
Event specifiers for AMD IBS can have the following optional
qualifiers:
.Bl -tag -width "ldlat=value"
.It Li l3miss
Configure IBS to only sample if an l3miss occurred.
.It Li ldlat= Ns Ar value
Configure the counter to only sample events with load latencies above
.Ar ldlat .
IBS only supports filtering latencies that are a multiple of 128 and between
128 and 2048.
Load latency filtering can only be used with ibs-op events and imply the
l3miss qualifier.
.It Li randomize
Randomize the sampling rate.
.El
.Ss AMD IBS Events Specifiers
The IBS event class provides only two event specifiers:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Li ibs-fetch Xo
.Op ,l3miss
.Op ,randomize
.Xc
Collect performance samples during instruction fetch.
The
.Ar randomize
qualifier randomly sets the bottom four bits of the sample rate.
.It Li ibs-op Xo
.Op ,l3miss
.Op ,ldlat= Ns Ar ldlat
.Op ,randomize
.Xc
Collect performance samples during instruction execution.
The
.Ar randomize
qualifier, upon reaching the maximum count, restarts the count with a value
between 1 and 127.
.El
.Pp
You may collect both events at the same time.
N.B. AMD discouraged doing so with certain older processors, stating that
sampling both simultaneously perturbs the results.
Please see the processor programming reference for your specific processor.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr pmc 3 ,
.Xr pmc.amd 3 ,
.Xr pmc.soft 3 ,
.Xr pmc.tsc 3 ,
.Xr pmclog 3 ,
.Xr hwpmc 4
.Sh HISTORY
AMD IBS support was first introduced in
.Fx 16.0 .
.Sh AUTHORS
AMD IBS support and this manual page were written
.An Ali Mashtizadeh Aq Mt ali@mashtizadeh.com
and sponsored by Netflix, Inc.
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