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I'm seriously thinking of looking into MyHDL (myhdl.org). It's a way of specifying spec in python syntax and I think it automatically compiles down to VHDL (and

by fizixer 10y ago

I'm seriously thinking of looking into MyHDL (myhdl.org). It's a way of specifying spec in python syntax and I think it automatically compiles down to VHDL (and probably more). It's especially good for programmers like me who would also be interested in building layers of abstraction to offload some of the cognitive burden. Anyone tried it?

asimuvPR 10y ago
I will try it now that you have linked to it. Email if you want to compare notes. :)
bsder 10y ago
It's ... okay. However, full programming languages really aren't very good for specifying hardware, though. There are simply far too many constructs that don't actually map to to an implementation.
- sliverstorm 10y ago
  And of those that map to implementations, many are physically infeasible implementations
  - akiselev 10y ago
    And the designs that are feasibly synthesizable usually have to be tweaked until the timing works out, which gets harder the faster your clock speed and the more different clock/power domains you have. There's a significant risk that any high level abstraction would be leaky enough that you might have to rip up large parts of the design and start from scratch with Verilog/HDL anyway.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- aninhumer 10y ago
  Sure, if you just try to write software and expect it to work as hardware you're going to have a bad time, but that's not really the point of these tools. The reason to use a programming language for hardware design is that modern programming languages are monumentally better at abstraction than pretty much any available HDL or hardware design tools.
  - bsder 10y ago
    However those abstractions rarely map to hardware well. For example, I use hash maps and vectors for almost all of the adhoc data structures in my programs. Neither of these have a useful abstraction in hardware. At that point, why am I using a modern programming language?
    - aninhumer 10y ago
      Again, those are software concepts. That's not what I'm talking about. The point is, there are many hardware level constructions (FIFOs, BRAMs, CAMs, etc.) which can be very usefully abstracted. And you use a software language to do it, simply because the hardware languages are so bad at it. There's no reason a HDL couldn't be good at expressing these abstractions (indeed Bluespec exists and does a fairly good job), but since they don't, using a programming language simply as a metalanguage is still better than actual HDLs.

by fizixer 10y ago

asimuvPR 10y ago

I will try it now that you have linked to it. Email if you want to compare notes. :)

bsder 10y ago

It's ... okay. However, full programming languages really aren't very good for specifying hardware, though. There are simply far too many constructs that don't actually map to to an implementation.

sliverstorm 10y ago
And of those that map to implementations, many are physically infeasible implementations
- akiselev 10y ago
  And the designs that are feasibly synthesizable usually have to be tweaked until the timing works out, which gets harder the faster your clock speed and the more different clock/power domains you have. There's a significant risk that any high level abstraction would be leaky enough that you might have to rip up large parts of the design and start from scratch with Verilog/HDL anyway.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
aninhumer 10y ago
Sure, if you just try to write software and expect it to work as hardware you're going to have a bad time, but that's not really the point of these tools. The reason to use a programming language for hardware design is that modern programming languages are monumentally better at abstraction than pretty much any available HDL or hardware design tools.
- bsder 10y ago
  However those abstractions rarely map to hardware well. For example, I use hash maps and vectors for almost all of the adhoc data structures in my programs. Neither of these have a useful abstraction in hardware. At that point, why am I using a modern programming language?
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    Again, those are software concepts. That's not what I'm talking about. The point is, there are many hardware level constructions (FIFOs, BRAMs, CAMs, etc.) which can be very usefully abstracted. And you use a software language to do it, simply because the hardware languages are so bad at it. There's no reason a HDL couldn't be good at expressing these abstractions (indeed Bluespec exists and does a fairly good job), but since they don't, using a programming language simply as a metalanguage is still better than actual HDLs.