4 ms·

Kinda off-topic. SpinalHDL is the second HDL, that I come across, being implemented in Scala. It seems that every popular programming language has at least one

Kinda off-topic. SpinalHDL is the second HDL, that I come across, being implemented in Scala. It seems that every popular programming language has at least one HDL implemented in it these days. Any obvious reasons for this trend?

baobrien 9y ago
I'm not sure about the trend in general, but it looks like SpinalHDL is a fork of Chisel, the 'other' Scala-based HDL.
- Dolu 9y ago
  Yes kind of, SpinalHDL is a from scratch fork
rvense 9y ago
Everybody wants a new HDL but there's no standard yet. Embedding it in your favourite language is the obvious solution, and hence there will be at least one per language.
- Dolu 9y ago
  Yes a standard would be great, with all the feature provide by those embedded HDL, but i'm realy not sure the industry could make it. #systemverilog
aseipp 9y ago
Honestly, I'd wager it's because Verilog and VHDL suck in a lot of ways basically. They work, but almost anything has better abstraction and reuse capabilities, even embedded DSLs or bespoke compilers or whatever, and offer better feedback loops during development. REPLs help a lot when building big circuits out of smaller ones. Being able to use a package manager to grab and manage SoC/IP components is convenient, etc. Most of these DSLs tend to work at the level of RTL as opposed to something like "high level synthesis" where register usage is inferred, too (OpenCL, C, etc). So depending on how it's designed the results can be pretty close to hand-written code IME, without much overhead. They're more like "Super RTL" as opposed to real "high level" languages...
- debatem1 9y ago
  I suspect you're right, but it makes me sad. I really like verilog as a language and after working with it for a few years wish it was possible to program desktops in a similar way.
  - Dolu 9y ago
    I was exactly in the same mood some years ago, until i triey one of those HDL alternative.

baobrien 9y ago

I'm not sure about the trend in general, but it looks like SpinalHDL is a fork of Chisel, the 'other' Scala-based HDL.

Dolu 9y ago
Yes kind of, SpinalHDL is a from scratch fork

rvense 9y ago

Everybody wants a new HDL but there's no standard yet. Embedding it in your favourite language is the obvious solution, and hence there will be at least one per language.

Dolu 9y ago
Yes a standard would be great, with all the feature provide by those embedded HDL, but i'm realy not sure the industry could make it. #systemverilog

aseipp 9y ago

Honestly, I'd wager it's because Verilog and VHDL suck in a lot of ways basically. They work, but almost anything has better abstraction and reuse capabilities, even embedded DSLs or bespoke compilers or whatever, and offer better feedback loops during development. REPLs help a lot when building big circuits out of smaller ones. Being able to use a package manager to grab and manage SoC/IP components is convenient, etc. Most of these DSLs tend to work at the level of RTL as opposed to something like "high level synthesis" where register usage is inferred, too (OpenCL, C, etc). So depending on how it's designed the results can be pretty close to hand-written code IME, without much overhead. They're more like "Super RTL" as opposed to real "high level" languages...

debatem1 9y ago
I suspect you're right, but it makes me sad. I really like verilog as a language and after working with it for a few years wish it was possible to program desktops in a similar way.
- Dolu 9y ago
  I was exactly in the same mood some years ago, until i triey one of those HDL alternative.