Hardware-oriented types¶
The intbv
class¶
Hardware design involves dealing with bits and bit-oriented operations. The
standard Python type int
has most of the desired features, but lacks
support for indexing and slicing. For this reason, MyHDL provides the
intbv
class. The name was chosen to suggest an integer with bit vector
flavor.
intbv
works transparently with other integer-like types. Like
class int
, it provides access to the underlying two’s complement
representation for bitwise operations. However, unlike int
, it is
a mutable type. This means that its value can be changed after object
creation, through methods and operators such as slice assignment.
intbv
supports the same operators as int
for arithmetic.
In addition, it provides a number of features to make it
suitable for hardware design. First, the range of allowed values can
be constrained. This makes it possible to check the value at run time
during simulation. Moreover, back end tools can determine the smallest
possible bit width for representing the object.
Secondly, it supports bit level operations by providing an indexing
and slicing interface.
intbv
objects are constructed in general as follows:
intbv([val=None] [, min=None] [, max=None])
val is the initial value. min and max can be used to constrain the value. Following the Python conventions, min is inclusive, and max is exclusive. Therefore, the allowed value range is min .. max-1.
Let’s us look at some examples. First, an unconstrained intbv
object is created as follows:
>>> a = intbv(24)
After object creation, min and max are available as attributes for
inspection. Also, the standard Python function len()
can be used
to determine the bit width. If we inspect the previously created
object, we get:
>>> print a.min
None
>>> print a.max
None
>>> print len(a)
0
As the instantiation was unconstrained, the min and max attributes
are undefined. Likewise, the bit width is undefined, which is indicated
by a return value 0
.
A constrained intbv
object is created as follows:
>>> a = intbv(24, min=0, max=25)
Inspecting the object now gives:
>>> a.min
0
>>> a.max
25
>>> len(a)
5
We see that the allowed value range is 0 .. 24, and that 5 bits are required to represent the object.
Sometimes hardware engineers prefer to constrain an object by defining its bit width directly, instead of the range of allowed values. The following example shows how to do that:
>>> a = intbv(24)[5:]
What actually happens here is that first an unconstrained intbv
is created, which is then sliced. Slicing an intbv
returns a new
intbv
with the constraints set up appropriately.
Inspecting the object now shows:
>>> a.min
0
>>> a.max
32
>>> len(a)
5
Note that the max attribute is 32, as with 5 bits it is possible to represent
the range 0 .. 31. Creating an intbv
this way has the disadvantage
that only positive value ranges can be specified. Slicing is described in more
detail in Bit slicing.
To summarize, there are two ways to constrain an intbv
object: by
defining its bit width, or by defining its value range. The bit
width method is more traditional in hardware design. However, there
are two reasons to use the range method instead: to represent
negative values as observed above, and for fine-grained control over the
value range.
Fine-grained control over the value range permits better error checking, as there is no need for the min and max bounds to be symmetric or powers of 2. In all cases, the bit width is set appropriately to represent all values in the range. For example:
>>> a = intbv(6, min=0, max=7)
>>> len(a)
3
>>> a = intbv(6, min=-3, max=7)
>>> len(a)
4
>>> a = intbv(6, min=-13, max=7)
>>> len(a)
5
Bit indexing¶
As an example, we will consider the design of a Gray encoder. The following code is a Gray encoder modeled in MyHDL:
from myhdl import Signal, delay, Simulation, always_comb, instance, intbv, bin
def bin2gray(B, G, width):
""" Gray encoder.
B -- input intbv signal, binary encoded
G -- output intbv signal, gray encoded
width -- bit width
"""
@always_comb
def logic():
for i in range(width):
G.next[i] = B[i+1] ^ B[i]
return logic
This code introduces a few new concepts. The string in triple quotes at the start of the function is a doc string. This is standard Python practice for structured documentation of code.
Furthermore, we introduce a third decorator: always_comb()
. It is used
with a classic function and specifies that the resulting generator should wait
for a value change on any input signal. This is typically used to describe
combinatorial logic. The always_comb()
decorator automatically infers
which signals are used as inputs.
Finally, the code contains bit indexing operations and an exclusive-or operator
as required for a Gray encoder. By convention, the lsb of an intbv
object has index 0
.
To verify the Gray encoder, we write a test bench that prints input and output for all possible input values:
def testBench(width):
B = Signal(intbv(0))
G = Signal(intbv(0))
dut = bin2gray(B, G, width)
@instance
def stimulus():
for i in range(2**width):
B.next = intbv(i)
yield delay(10)
print "B: " + bin(B, width) + "| G: " + bin(G, width)
return dut, stimulus
We use the conversion function bin()
to get a binary string representation of
the signal values. This function is exported by the myhdl
package and
supplements the standard Python hex()
and oct()
conversion functions.
As a demonstration, we set up a simulation for a small width:
sim = Simulation(testBench(width=3))
sim.run()
The simulation produces the following output:
% python bin2gray.py
B: 000 | G: 000
B: 001 | G: 001
B: 010 | G: 011
B: 011 | G: 010
B: 100 | G: 110
B: 101 | G: 111
B: 110 | G: 101
B: 111 | G: 100
StopSimulation: No more events
Bit slicing¶
For a change, we will use a traditional function as an example to illustrate slicing. The following function calculates the HEC byte of an ATM header.
from myhdl import intbv, concat
COSET = 0x55
def calculateHec(header):
""" Return hec for an ATM header, represented as an intbv.
The hec polynomial is 1 + x + x**2 + x**8.
"""
hec = intbv(0)
for bit in header[32:]:
hec[8:] = concat(hec[7:2],
bit ^ hec[1] ^ hec[7],
bit ^ hec[0] ^ hec[7],
bit ^ hec[7]
)
return hec ^ COSET
The code shows how slicing access and assignment is supported on the
intbv
data type. In accordance with the most common hardware
convention, and unlike standard Python, slicing ranges are downward. The code
also demonstrates concatenation of intbv
objects.
As in standard Python, the slicing range is half-open: the highest index bit is
not included. Unlike standard Python however, this index corresponds to the
leftmost item. Both indices can be omitted from the slice. If the leftmost
index is omitted, the meaning is to access “all” higher order bits. If the
rightmost index is omitted, it is 0
by default.
The half-openness of a slice may seem awkward at first, but it helps to avoid
one-off count issues in practice. For example, the slice hex[8:]
has exactly
8
bits. Likewise, the slice hex[7:2]
has 7-2=5
bits. You can think
about it as follows: for a slice [i:j]
, only bits below index i
are
included, and the bit with index j
is the last bit included.
When an intbv
object is sliced, a new intbv
object is returned.
This new intbv
object is always positive, and the value bounds are
set up in accordance with the bit width specified by the slice. For example:
>>> a = intbv(6, min=-3, max=7)
>>> len(a)
4
>>> b = a[4:]
>>> b
intbv(6L)
>>> len(b)
4
>>> b.min
0
>>> b.max
16
In the example, the original object is sliced with a slice equal to its bit width. The returned object has the same value and bit width, but its value range consists of all positive values that can be represented by the bit width.
The object returned by a slice is positive, even when the original object is negative:
>>> a = intbv(-3)
>>> bin(a, width=5)
'11101'
>>> b = a[5:]
>>> b
intbv(29L)
>>> bin(b)
'11101'
The bit pattern of the two objects is identical within the bit width, but their values have opposite sign.
The modbv
class¶
In hardware modeling, there is often a need for the elegant modeling of
wrap-around behavior. intbv
instances do not support this
automatically, as they assert that any assigned value is within the bound
constraints. However, wrap-around modeling can be straightforward. For
example, the wrap-around condition for a counter is often decoded explicitly,
as it is needed for other purposes. Also, the modulo operator provides an
elegant one-liner in many scenarios:
count.next = (count + 1) % 2**8
However, some interesting cases are not supported by the intbv
type.
For example, we would like to describe a free running counter using a variable
and augmented assignment as follows:
count_var += 1
This is not possible with the intbv
type, as we cannot add the modulo
behavior to this description. A similar problem exist for an augmented left
shift as follows:
shifter <<= 4
To support these operations directly, MyHDL provides the modbv
type. modbv
is implemented as a subclass of intbv
.
The two classes have an identical interface and work together
in a straightforward way for arithmetic operations.
The only difference is how the bounds are handled: out-of-bound values
result in an error with intbv
, and in wrap-around with
modbv
. For example, the modulo counter above can be
modeled as follows:
count = Signal(modbv(0, min=0, max=2**8))
...
count.next = count + 1
The wrap-around behavior is defined in general as follows:
val = (val - min) % (max - min) + min
In a typical case when min==0
, this reduces to:
val = val % max
Unsigned and signed representation¶
intbv
is designed to be as high level as possible. The underlying
value of an intbv
object is a Python int
, which is
represented as a two’s complement number with “indefinite” bit
width. The range bounds are only used for error checking, and to
calculate the minimum required bit width for representation. As a
result, arithmetic can be performed like with normal integers.
In contrast, HDLs such as Verilog and VHDL typically require designers
to deal with representational issues, especially for synthesizable code.
They provide low-level types like signed
and unsigned
for
arithmetic. The rules for arithmetic with such types are much more
complicated than with plain integers.
In some cases it can be useful to interpret intbv
objects
in terms of “signed” and “unsigned”. Basically, it depends on attribute min.
if min < 0, then the object is “signed”, otherwise it is “unsigned”.
In particular, the bit width of a “signed” object will account for
a sign bit, but that of an “unsigned” will not, because that would
be redundant. From earlier sections, we have learned that the
return value from a slicing operation is always “unsigned”.
In some applications, it is desirable to convert an “unsigned”
intbv
to a “signed”, in other words, to interpret the msb bit
as a sign bit. The msb bit is the highest order bit within the object’s
bit width. For this purpose, intbv
provides the
intbv.signed()
method. For example:
>>> a = intbv(12, min=0, max=16)
>>> bin(a)
'1100'
>>> b = a.signed()
>>> b
-4
>>> bin(b, width=4)
'1100'
intbv.signed()
extends the msb bit into the higher-order bits of the
underlying object value, and returns the result as an integer.
Naturally, for a “signed” the return value will always be identical
to the original value, as it has the sign bit already.
As an example let’s take a 8 bit wide data bus that would be modeled as follows:
data_bus = intbv(0)[8:]
Now consider that a complex number is transferred over this data bus. The upper 4 bits of the data bus are used for the real value and the lower 4 bits for the imaginary value. As real and imaginary values have a positive and negative value range, we can slice them off from the data bus and convert them as follows:
real.next = data_bus[8:4].signed()
imag.next = data_bus[4:].signed()