"Hardcaml of Verilog"

Use the opensource verilog synthesis tool Yosys to read a synthesizable verilog design, convert it to a structural netlist and save it in a JSON file.

This library can read the JSON netlist file and reconstruct the design in Hardcaml.

Usage

The library can be used to convert and load JSON netlists. The yosys tool must be in the PATH.

A tool is also provided which can be used to generate OCaml code to wrap a Verilog design and load it at runtime (either by synthesis with yosys, or from a pre-generated JSON file).

Compatibility

The library has been tested mainly with yosys version 0.6 and 0.9. Some testing was also done with 0.8. No compatibility issues have been found between versions so far.

Conversion status

Hardcaml does not support tri-state buffers in general. Circuits with tri-states will not work.

A few simlib primitives are not supported in the techlib. These either wont work in Hardcaml (ie latches) or have yet to be implemented. In these cases a blackbox module is generated (the implementation of which can be taken from the yosys simlib).

|Status              | Modules                                                             |
|--------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------|
| to do              | shiftx, fsm, macc, alu                                              |
| bbox only          | sr, dlatch, dlatchsr                                                |
| no support planned | tribuf, div, mod, pow, memwr, memrd, meminit, assert, assume, equiv |

Memories

Yosys can represent memories in a variety of ways

1. Synthesized into technology primitives (ie Xilinx block RAM) Supported by black boxes
2. Converted to registers and muxes fully supported
3. As a $mem cell supported with some limitations
4. As a combination of $memwr, $memrd and $meminit cells not supported

The 2nd option is quite general and should be usable in most cases. That said the netlist will now implement all memories as registers so the design - as Hardcaml sees it - may not be very efficient. Uses the following command in yosys.

yosys> memory -dff

The third option will attempt to keep memories, but implement them using Hardcaml memory primitives. Hardcaml only supports memories with one read and one write port whereas in general we need to support multi-port memories with

• N read ports
• M write ports
• Each write port may be in a different clock domain
• Each read port may be in a different clock domain
• Each read port may be synchronous or asynchronous
• Each read port may be read-before-write or write-before-read (also called fallthrough).

To support yosys we use a construction called a LVT multi-port memory which builds more general memory structures from simpler single port memories. The following limitations are known

1. only supports 1 write clock domain
2. read-before-write and write-before-read behaviour only really makes sense if the read and write clocks are in the same clock domain.
3. Memory initialisation is not supported.

In yosys use;

yosys> memory -nomap; opt; clean

Example

Yosys usage

A simple design with a single module may be converted with;

yosys> read_verilog design.v;     # load design
yosys> hierarchy; proc; flatten;  # structural conversion
yosys> write_json design.json     # write json netlist

In larger designs with multiple modules and/or memories this might be extended to;

yosys> read_verilog design.v       # load design
yosys> hierarchy -top <top_module> # select top level module
yosys> proc; flatten               # structural conversion
yosys> memory -nomap               # convert memories
yosys> opt -mux_undef; clean       # tidy up netlist
yosys> write_json design.json      # write json netlist

Hardcaml usage

Convert a single verilog file.

let convert_verilog ?verbose ?passes verilog_file =
  (* Create a [Verilog_design] which represents the files and modules in the design hierarchy *)
  let verilog_design =
    Verilog_design.create
      ~top:(Verilog_design.Module.create ~module_name:"top" ~path:verilog_file ())
      ()
  in
  (* Synthesize to a [Netlist] *)
  let%bind.Or_error netlist = Netlist.create ?verbose ?passes verilog_design in
  (* Convert to a Hardcaml [Circuit] *)
  let%bind.Or_error verilog_circuit =
    Verilog_circuit.create netlist ~top_name:(Verilog_design.top_name verilog_design)
  in
  Verilog_circuit.to_hardcaml_circuit verilog_circuit
;;

Yosys build notes

You can add a Makefile.conf to configure the build. Set

CONFIG=gcc
ENABLE_TCL=0

The make all and install processes can both take a prefix so you can install manually

make PREFIX=/final/localtion
make install PREFIX=/local/dir
do_my_install