pihdf: Python Hardware Design Framework based on MyHDL

A very preliminary documentation (work-in-progress) is available at: http://hnikolov.github.io/pihdf_doc/

Install pihdf using pip

You can install the latest release of pihdf from pypi: :

$ sudo pip install pihdf

Note: If you do not have pip installed: :

$ sudo apt-get install python-pip python-dev build-essential 
$ sudo pip install --upgrade pip 

Install pihdf from source ---------------------------

If you plan to contribute to pihdf, then install it from source: :

$ git clone https://github.com/hnikolov/pihdf
$ cd pihdf
$ sudo python setup.py develop

Option develop installs pyhdf in editable mode. This is very convenient because your changes are immediately reflected into the installed pihdf package. This means that you do not need to re-install pihdf in order your changes to take effect.

Dependences on Python packages

pihdf requires the following python packages: myhdl, myhdl_lib, simplejson, coverage, nose. These packages will be installed during the installation of pihdf if not present on your system.

Note: These packages will not be un-installed if you un-install pyhdf.

Co-simulation, waveform and dotty viewers

For co-simulations, pihdf uses the Icarus iverilog simulator. GTKWave is the waveform viewer used in pihdf. For structured designs, pihdf generates also the design topology (i.e., HW modules interconnections) as a .dot file. To viasualize it, you can use the xdot program. Install all programs by executing: :

$ sudo apt-get install iverilog gtkwave xdot

Create myhdl.vpi ------------------

For co-simuations, myhdl uses a .vpi interface. To create the myhdl.vpi file used with Icarus, you need the source of myhdl: :

$ git clone https://github.com/jandecaluwe/myhdl
$ make -C myhdl/cosimulation/icarus
$ sudo mkdir /.pihdf
$ sudo cp myhdl/cosimulation/icarus/myhdl.vpi /.pihdf

Note: pihdf expects file myhdl.vpi to be in folder /.pihdf

Un-install

Un-installing pihdf (should you decide to do so) is easy. Depending on how you installed it, you can:

Un-install pihdf using pip: :

$ sudo pip uninstall pihdf

Or, un-install pihdf if installed from source: :

$ cd pihdf
$ sudo python setup.py develop --uninstall

To remove the command-line tool module from its location: :

$ which module | xargs sudo rm

Note

The command-line tool module makes use of the very convenient package docopt (https://github.com/docopt/docopt), which is copied in the pihdf repository.