Introduction

Hardware description languages (HDL) are used to describe electronical circuits. The two main flavours of hardware description languages are VHDL and Verilog. VHDL was initially defined in 1980 by United States Department of Defence and it has long history of behing closely tied to military, integrated circuit industry and academic circles. There are not so many open-source VHDL simulators available, but GHDL seems to be the most usable at the moment.

VHDL

VHDL splits hardware description to entity and architecture similarily to Java with splits method declaration to interface and implementation. The entity is used to describe how an digital logic component package looks like: how many ports there are whether they can be used as inputs, outputs or both. The architecture on the other hand describes what's happening on the inside, thus defining the behavioral logic:

library ieee;
use ieee.std_logic_1164.all;

entity full_adder is
    port (
        a  : in  std_logic;
        b  : in  std_logic;
        ci : in  std_logic;
        s  : out std_logic;
        co : out std_logic);
end;

architecture behavioral of full_adder is
begin
    s <= a xor b xor ci;
    co <= (a and b) or ((a xor b) and ci);
end;

VHDL Foreign Language Interface (FLI) allows architecture sections to be written in languages other than VHDL, for example C.

Modelling styles

Sequential style follows closely software engineer point of view:

-- XOR gate described using sequential style
process(a,b)
begin
    -- Not equals operator in VHDL is /=
    if (a/=b) then
        q <= '1';
    else
        q <= '0';
end process;

Data flow style in this case is the most obvious:

q <= a xor b;

Structural style maps closely to hardware, but in this case is pretty excessive:

u1: inverter port map (a,ai);
u2: inverter port map (b,bi);
u3: and_gate port map (ai,b,t3);
u4: and_gate port map (bi,a,t4);
u5: or_gate port map (t3,t4,q);

Note that variables can be used only within process and no signals are allowed in process declaration. Variable are not visible outside processes and their assignments take effect immideately. This essentially means the variable definitions have a scope, in VHDL jargon it's known as name regions. Signals on the other hand are declared in the architecutre header and they're shared among processes. During synthesis they essentially become wires.

Inference rules

Most programming languages are naturally sequential, while threads and event loops are used to add concurrency. VHDL as actual hardware on the other hand is concurrent by default, for instance in the code snippet above the two output assignment operations are carried out in parallel. VHDL also permits defining sequential processes. Following chart describes what approximately happens during synthesis of VHDL code:

Data types

VHDL defines 6 built-in data types: bit, bit_vector, integer, real, time and character:

type boolean is (false, true);
type bit is ('0', '1');
type bit_vector is array(integer range <>) of bit;
type character is (NUL, SOH,..., DEL);   -- 128 chars in VHDL'87
                                         -- 256 chars in VHDL'93
type string is array(positive range <>) of character;

Subtype is a user constrained type derived from any of the built-in types. Access types are essentially pointers, they can be used to dynamically allocate storage.

Physical types can be constrained by user defined range. Time units are only predefined type in VHDL. Physical types have unit assocated with them:

type resistance is range 0 to 1000000
units
    ohm;
    Kohm = 1000 ohm;
    Mohm = 1000 kohm;
end units;

IEEE predefined types:

type std_ulogic is ('U', 'X', '0', '1', 'Z', 'W', 'L', 'H', '-');
type std_logic is resolved std_ulogic; -- Resolution function call
type std_logic_vector is array (integer range <>) of std_logic;

Type attributes

Type attributes are defined for scalar types (real, integer, enumeration type) 1:

type color is (red, green, blue) -- Enumeration type
color'left = red
color'right = blue
color'low = red
color'high = blue
color'ascending = true
color'image(green) = "green"
color'value("Red") = red

Type attributes for array types:

subtype nibble is bit_vector(3 downto 0);
nibble'range = 3 downto 0
nibble'reversed_range = 0 to 3
nibble'length = 4
nibble'left = 3
nibble'right = 0
nibble'low = 0
nibble'high = 3
nibble'ascending = false
nibble'element = bit

1

Designer's Guide to VHDL, page 55.

Sequential processes

The process keyword is used to describe sequential or also known as clocked code. For instance following code snippet becomes D latch with asynchronous reset:

process(d, reset, clk)
begin
    if (reset = '0') then
        q <= '0';
    elsif (clk = '1') then
        q <= d;
    end if;
end process;

In this case d, reset and clk are signals in the sensitivity list of the process. The process is entered with any change to the signals in the sensitivity list. Note that sensitivity list is used for simulation, but it's not used by synthesizer.

Signal attributes

.. code::

Assertions

Assertions can be used to validate code 2:

assert initial_value >= min_value;

Report statement can be used to add verbosity:

assert current_value >= min_value
    report "current value too low"

Severity level is defined as enumeration type:

type severity_level is (note, warning, error, failure)

Level failure aborts the simulation.

assert current_value >= min_value
    report "current value too low"
    severity failure;

2

Designer's Guide to VHDL, page 87

VHDL simulation

Delays in VHDL

VHDL distinguishes three delay models: inertial, transport and delta delay.

Delta delay is infinitesimal delay, meaning it can't be measured in units. Delta delay essentially means that once process starts executing the signal assignments don't take effect until next simulation cycle. Consider following code snippet: signal s is assigned value of 1, but when if statement evaluates s, it still bears the value assigned to s from previous cycle, not from current one 3.

s <= '1'
...
if s then ...

In real devices changing the output value involves moving electrons around and that is affected by resistance, capacitance and inductance 4. To model such characteristics inertial keyword can be used. Keyword reject can be used in conjucton with inertial to filter out pulses within that time slot. It essentially means that signal changes within certain timeframe are not propagated. Using inertial delay gates can be described precisely:

-- All three equivalent
s0 <= s after 10 ns;
s1 <= inertial s after 10 ns;
s2 <= reject 10 ns inertial s after 10 ns;

Transport delay represents the lag of wiring within device. It passes all input transitions with delay. Keyword transport can be used in such cases:

s3 <= transport s after 10 ns;

Transport and intertial delays can't be synthesized in hardware, it's the other way around - delays can be used to model actual hardware.

3

Designer's Guide to VHDL, page 155

4

Designer's Guide to VHDL, page 158

Ports in VHDL

VHDL distinguishes three types of ports: in, out, inout.

For procedures:

• signal port modes may be in, out, inout. Last two have to be connected to a signal.

• variable mode may be in, out, inout. Last two have to be connected to a variable.

• constant may be only in in mode and connected to an expression which evaluates to constant within the procedure.

Packages

Packages are used to collect: subprograms (functions, procedures), data and type declarations and component declarations. Entities and architectures can not be declared or defined in a pacakge.

Functions and procedures

Functions produce a single return value and can not modify parameters passed to it.

function add_bits (a, b : in bit) return bit is
begin
    return (a xor b);
end add_bits;

Procedures don't require return statement and they can modify signals declared as outputs.

procedure add_bits3 (
    signal a, b, en : in bit;
    signal temp_result, temp_carry : out bit) is
begin
    temp_result <= (a xor b) and en;
    temp_carry <= a and b and en;
end add_bits3;

In a clocked body procedures can be invoked as follows:

architecture behavior of adder is
begin
    process (enable, x, y)
    begin
        add_bits3(x, y, enable, result, carry);
    end process;
end behavior;

In concurrent statements it's slightly different:

architecture behaviour of adder is
begin
    u0: add_bits3 (a, b, en, temp_result, temp_carry);
end example;

Aggregates

Aggregate statement assigns several values simulatenously on the left-hand side expession [#aggregate]:

type point is array(1 to 3) of real;
constant origin : point := (0.0, 0.0, 0.0);         -- Aggregate expression
variable view_point : point := (10.0, 20.0, 0.0);   -- Another one

Aggregates also work the other way around:

signal status_register : bit_vector(7 downto 0);
signal interrupt_priority, cpu_priority : bit_vector(2 downto 0),
signal interrupt_enable, cpu_mode : bit;

( 2 downto 0 => interrupt_priority,
  6 downto 4 => cpu_priority,
  3 => interrupt_enable,
  7 => cpu_mode) <= status_register;

Assigning structure values also constitutes as aggregate statement.

5

Designer's Guide to VHDL, page 99

Bus resolution

IEEE1164 defined bus resolution via following constant:

type std_logic_table is array(std_ulogic, std_ulogic) of std_ulogic;
constant resolution_table : std_logic_table := (
    ('U', 'U', 'U', 'U', 'U', 'U', 'U', 'U', 'U'), -- U
    ('U', 'X', 'X', 'X', 'X', 'X', 'X', 'X', 'X'), -- X
    ('U', 'X', '0', 'X', '0', '0', '0', '0', 'X'), -- 0
    ('U', 'X', 'X', '1', '1', '1', '1', '1', 'X'), -- 1
    ('U', 'X', '0', '1', 'Z', 'W', 'L', 'H', 'X'), -- Z
    ('U', 'X', '0', '1', 'W', 'W', 'W', 'W', 'X'), -- W
    ('U', 'X', '0', '1', 'L', 'W', 'L', 'W', 'X'), -- L
    ('U', 'X', '0', '1', 'H', 'W', 'W', 'H', 'X'), -- H
    ('U', 'X', 'X', 'X', 'X', 'X', 'X', 'X', 'X'), -- -
--    U    X    0    1    Z    W    L    H    -

The resolution table is used to determine what happens when two sources drive same signal. For example weak high and weak low result in weak drive:

resolution_table('L', 'H') = 'W'

High and low result in X which symbolizes short-circuit:

resolution_table('1', '0') = 'X'

Other tricks

The alias statement can be used to refer to already defined identifiers 6 such as package items, record elements, array items and array slices:

signal instruction   : bit_vector(15 downto 0);
alias opcode         : bit_vector( 3 downto 0) is instruction(15 downto 12);
alias src            : bit_vector( 1 downto 0) is instruction(11 downto 10);
alias dest           : bit_vector( 1 downto 0) is instruction( 9 downto 8);
alias immediate      : bit_vector( 7 downto 0) is instruction( 7 downto 0);

6

Designer's Guide to VHDL, page 355