Introduction to MyHDL¶
A basic MyHDL simulation¶
We will introduce MyHDL with a classic Hello World
style example. All
example code can be found in the distribution directory under
example/manual/
. Here are the contents of a MyHDL simulation script
called hello1.py
:
from myhdl import block, delay, always, now
@block
def HelloWorld():
@always(delay(10))
def say_hello():
print("%s Hello World!" % now())
return say_hello
inst = HelloWorld()
inst.run_sim(30)
When we run this simulation, we get the following output:
$ python hello1.py
10 Hello World!
20 Hello World!
30 Hello World!
<class 'myhdl._SuspendSimulation'>: Simulated 30 timesteps
The first line of the script imports a number of objects from the myhdl
package. In Python we can only use identifiers that are literally defined in the
source file.
Then, we define a function called HelloWorld
. In MyHDL, a hardware
module is modeled by a function decorated with the block
decorator. The
name block was chosen to avoid confusion with the Python concept
of a module. We will use this terminology further on.
The parameter list of the HelloWorld
function is used to define the
interface of the hardware block. In this first example, the interface is empty.
Inside the top level function we declare a local function called
say_hello
that defines the desired behavior. This function is decorated
with an always
decorator that has a delay
object as its
parameter. The meaning is that the function will be executed whenever the
specified delay interval has expired.
Behind the curtains, the always
decorator creates a Python generator
and reuses the name of the decorated function for it. Generators are the
fundamental objects in MyHDL, and we will say much more about them further on.
Finally, the top level function returns the say_hello
generator. This is
the simplest case of the basic MyHDL code pattern to define the contents of a
hardware block. We will describe the general case further on.
In MyHDL, we create an instance of a hardware block by calling the
corresponding function. The block
decorator make sure that the return
value is actually an instance of a block class, with a useful API. In the
example, variable inst
refers to a HelloWorld
block instance.
To simulate the instance, we use its run_sim
method. We can use it to
run the simulation for the desired amount of timesteps.
Signals and concurrency¶
An actual hardware design is typically massively concurrent, which means that a large amount of functional units are running in parallel. MyHDL supports this behavior by allowing an arbitrary number of concurrently running generators.
With concurrency comes the problem of deterministic communication. Hardware
languages use special objects to support deterministic communication between
concurrent code. In particular, MyHDL has a Signal
object which is
roughly modeled after VHDL signals.
We will demonstrate signals and concurrency by extending and modifying our first example. We define a hardware block that contains two generators, one that drives a clock signal, and one that is sensitive to a positive edge on a clock signal:
from myhdl import block, Signal, delay, always, now
@block
def HelloWorld():
clk = Signal(0)
@always(delay(10))
def drive_clk():
clk.next = not clk
@always(clk.posedge)
def say_hello():
print("%s Hello World!" % now())
return drive_clk, say_hello
inst = HelloWorld()
inst.run_sim(50)
The clock driver function clk_driver
drives the clock signal. If defines
a generator that continuously toggles a clock signal after a certain delay. A
new value of a signal is specified by assigning to its next
attribute. This
is the MyHDL equivalent of the VHDL signal assignment and the Verilog
non-blocking assignment.
The say_hello
function is modified from the first example. It is made
sensitive to a rising edge of the clock signal, specified by the posedge
attribute of a signal. The edge specifier is the argument of the always
decorator. As a result, the decorated function will be executed on every rising
clock edge.
The clk
signal is constructed with an initial value 0
. One generator
drives it, the other is sensitive to it. The result of this communication is
that the generators run in parallel, but that their actions are coordinated by
the clock signal.
When we run the simulation, we get:
$ python hello2.py
10 Hello World!
30 Hello World!
50 Hello World!
<class 'myhdl._SuspendSimulation'>: Simulated 50 timesteps
Parameters, ports and hierarchy¶
We have seen that MyHDL uses functions to model hardware blocks. So far these functions did not have parameters. However, to create general, reusable blocks we will need parameters. For example, we can create a clock driver block as follows:
from myhdl import block, delay, instance
@block
def ClkDriver(clk, period=20):
lowTime = int(period / 2)
highTime = period - lowTime
@instance
def drive_clk():
while True:
yield delay(lowTime)
clk.next = 1
yield delay(highTime)
clk.next = 0
return drive_clk
The block encapsulates a clock driver generator. It has two parameters.
The first parameter is clk is the clock signal. A asignal parameter is
MyHDL’s way to model a dfn:port:. The second parameter is the clock period,
with a default value of 20
.
As the low time of the clock may differ from the high time in case of an odd
period, we cannot use the always
decorator with a single delay value
anymore. Instead, the drive_clk
function is now a generator function
with an explicit definition of the desired behavior. It is decorated with the
instance
decorator. You can see that drive_clk
is a generator
function because it contains yield
statements.
When a generator function is called, it returns a generator object. This is
basically what the instance
decorator does. It is less sophisticated
than the always
decorator, but it can be used to create a generator from
any local generator function.
The yield
statement is a general Python construct, but MyHDL uses it in a
specific way. It has a similar meaning as the wait statement in VHDL: the
statement suspends execution of a generator, and its clauses specify the
conditions on which the generator should wait before resuming. In this case, the
generator waits for a certain delay.
Note that to make sure that the generator runs “forever”, we wrap its behavior
in a while True
loop.
Similarly, we can define a general Hello
function as follows:
from myhdl import block, always, now
@block
def Hello(clk, to="World!"):
@always(clk.posedge)
def say_hello():
print("%s Hello %s" % (now(), to))
return say_hello
We can create any number of instances by calling the functions with the appropriate parameters. Hierarchy can be modeled by defining the instances in a higher-level function, and returning them. This pattern can be repeated for an arbitrary number of hierarchical levels. Consequently, the general definition of a MyHDL instance is recursive: an instance is either a sequence of instances, or a generator.
As an example, we will create a higher-level function with four instances of the lower-level functions, and simulate it:
from myhdl import block, Signal
from ClkDriver import ClkDriver
from Hello import Hello
@block
def Greetings():
clk1 = Signal(0)
clk2 = Signal(0)
clkdriver_1 = ClkDriver(clk1) # positional and default association
clkdriver_2 = ClkDriver(clk=clk2, period=19) # named association
hello_1 = Hello(clk=clk1) # named and default association
hello_2 = Hello(to="MyHDL", clk=clk2) # named association
return clkdriver_1, clkdriver_2, hello_1, hello_2
inst = Greetings()
inst.run_sim(50)
As in standard Python, positional or named parameter association can be used in instantiations, or a mix of both [1]. All these styles are demonstrated in the example above. Named association can be very useful if there are a lot of parameters, as the argument order in the call does not matter in that case.
The simulation produces the following output:
$ python greetings.py
9 Hello MyHDL
10 Hello World!
28 Hello MyHDL
30 Hello World!
47 Hello MyHDL
50 Hello World!
<class 'myhdl._SuspendSimulation'>: Simulated 50 timesteps
Terminology review¶
Some commonly used terminology has different meanings in Python versus hardware design. For a good understanding, it is important to make these differences explicit.
A module in Python refers to all source code in a particular file. A module can be reused by other modules by importing it. In hardware design on the other hand, a module typically refers to a reusable unit of hardware with a well defined interface. Because these meanings are so different, the terminology chosen for a hardware module in MyHDL is block instead, as explained earlier in this chapter.
A hardware block can can be reused in another block by instantiating it.
An instance in Python (and other object-oriented languages) refers to the object created by a class constructor. In hardware design, an instance is a particular incarnation of a hardware block, created by instantiating the block. In MyHDL, such as block instance is actually an instance of a particular class. Therefore, the two meanings are not exactly the same, but they coincide nicely.
Normally, the meaning the words “block” and “instance” should be clear from the context. Sometimes, we qualify them with the words “hardware” or “MyHDL” for clarity.
Some remarks on MyHDL and Python¶
To conclude this introductory chapter, it is useful to stress that MyHDL is not
a language in itself. The underlying language is Python, and MyHDL is
implemented as a Python package called myhdl
. Moreover, it is a design goal
to keep the myhdl
package as minimalistic as possible, so that MyHDL
descriptions are very much “pure Python”.
To have Python as the underlying language is significant in several ways:
- Python is a very powerful high level language. This translates into high productivity and elegant solutions to complex problems.
- Python is continuously improved by some very clever minds, supported by a large user base. Python profits fully from the open source development model.
- Python comes with an extensive standard library. Some functionality is likely to be of direct interest to MyHDL users: examples include string handling, regular expressions, random number generation, unit test support, operating system interfacing and GUI development. In addition, there are modules for mathematics, database connections, networking programming, internet data handling, and so on.
Summary and perspective¶
Here is an overview of what we have learned in this chapter:
- Generators are the basic building blocks of MyHDL models. They provide the way to model massive concurrency and sensitivity lists.
- MyHDL provides decorators that create useful generators from local functions and a decorator to create hardware blocks.
- Hardware structure and hierarchy is described with Python functions, decorated
with the
block
decorator. Signal
objects are used to communicate between concurrent generators.- A block instance provides a method to simulate it.
These concepts are sufficient to start modeling and simulating with MyHDL.
However, there is much more to MyHDL. Here is an overview of what can be learned from the following chapters:
- MyHDL supports hardware-oriented types that make it easier to write typical hardware models. These are described in Chapter Hardware-oriented types.
- MyHDL supports sophisticated and high level modeling techniques. This is described in Chapter High level modeling.
- MyHDL enables the use of modern software verification techniques, such as unit testing, on hardware designs. This is the topic of Chapter Unit testing.
- It is possible to co-simulate MyHDL models with other HDL languages such as Verilog and VHDL. This is described in Chapter Co-simulation with Verilog.
- Last but not least, MyHDL models can be converted to Verilog or VHDL, providing a path to a silicon implementation. This is the topic of Chapter Conversion to Verilog and VHDL.
Footnotes
[1] | All positional parameters have to go before any named parameter. |