To properly represent a negation of a signed X-bit quantity we may, in
general, need a signed (X+1)-bit signal — for example, negation of
3-bit -4 is 4, which is not representable in signed 3 bits.
The redesign introduces no fundamental incompatibilities, but it does
involve minor breaking changes:
* The simulator commands were moved from hdl.ast to back.pysim
(instead of only being reexported from back.pysim).
* back.pysim.DeadlineError was removed.
Summary of changes:
* The new simulator compiles HDL to Python code and is >6x faster.
(The old one compiled HDL to lots of Python lambdas.)
* The new simulator is a straightforward, rigorous implementation
of the Synchronous Reactive Programming paradigm, instead of
a pile of ad-hoc code with no particular design driving it.
* The new simulator never raises DeadlineError, and there is no
limit on the amount of delta cycles.
* The new simulator robustly handles multiclock designs.
* The new simulator can be reset, such that the compiled design
can be reused, which can save significant runtime with large
designs.
* Generators can no longer be added as processes, since that would
break reset(); only generator functions may be. If necessary,
they may be added by wrapping them into a generator function;
a deprecated fallback does just that. This workaround will raise
an exception if the simulator is reset and restarted.
* The new simulator does not depend on Python extensions.
(The old one required bitarray, which did not provide wheels.)
Fixes#28.
Fixes#34.
Fixes#160.
Fixes#161.
Fixes#215.
Fixes#242.
Fixes#262.
Otherwise, two subfragments with the same local clock domain would
not be able to drive its clock or reset signals. This can be easily
hit if using two ResetSynchronizers in one module.
Fixes#265.
We don't have any other convenient shortcut for x[off*w:(off+1)*w],
but using word_select to extract a single static range would result
in severe bloat of emitted code through expansion to dead branches.
Recognize and simplify this pattern.
Although constructor methods can improve clarity, there are many
contexts in which it is useful to use range() as a shape: notably
Layout, but also Const and AnyConst/AnyValue. Instead of duplicating
these constructor methods everywhere (which is not even easily
possible for Layout), use casting to Shape, introduced in 6aabdc0a.
Fixes#225.
Shapes have long been a part of nMigen, but represented using tuples.
This commit adds a Shape class (using namedtuple for backwards
compatibility), and accepts anything castable to Shape (including
enums, ranges, etc) anywhere a tuple was accepted previously.
In addition, `signed(n)` and `unsigned(n)` are added as aliases for
`Shape(n, signed=True)` and `Shape(n, signed=False)`, transforming
code such as `Signal((8, True))` to `Signal(signed(8))`.
These aliases are also included in prelude.
Preparation for #225.
This can cause confusion:
* If the erroneous object is None, it is printed as 'None', which
appears as a string (and could be the result of converting None
to a string.)
* If the erroneous object is a string, it is printed as ''<val>'',
which is a rather strange combination of quotes.
The write port priority in Yosys is derived directly from the order
in which the ports are declared in the Verilog frontend. It is being
removed for several reasons:
1. It is not clear if it works correctly for all cases (FFRAM,
LUTRAM, BRAM).
2. Although it is roundtripped via Verilog with correct simulation
semantics, the resulting code has a high chance of being
interpreted incorrectly by Xilinx tools.
3. It cannot be roundtripped via FIRRTL, which is an alternative
backend that is an interesting future option. (FIRRTL leaves
write collision completely undefined.)
3. It is a niche feature that, if it is needed, can be completely
replaced using an explicit comparator, priority encoder, and
write enable gating circuit. (This is what Xilinx recommends
for handling this case.)
In the future we should extend nMigen's formal verification to assert
that a write collision does not happen.
Almost no code would specify Signal(_, name) as a positional argument
on purpose, but forgetting parens and accidentally placing signedness
into the name position is so common that we had a test for it.
Unless exact_depth=True is specified.
The logic introduced in this commit is idempotent: that is, if one
uses the depth of one AsyncFIFOBuffered in the constructor of another
AsyncFIFOBuffered, they will end up with the same depth. More naive
logic would result in an unbounded, quadratic growth with each such
step.
Fixes#219.
These functions were originally changed in 3ed51938, in an attempt
to make them take one cycle instead of two. However, this does not
actually work because of drawbacks of the simulator interface.
Avoid committing to any specific implementation for now, and instead
make them compat-only extensions.
Before this commit, it was possible to set and get clock constraints
placed on Pin objects. This was not a very good implementation, since
it relied on matching the identity of the provided Pin object to
a previously requested one. The only reason it worked like that is
deficiencies in nextpnr.
Since then, nextpnr has been fixed to allow setting constraints on
arbitrary nets. Correspondingly, backends that are using Synplify
were changed to use [get_nets] instead of [get_ports] in SDC files.
However, in some situations, Synplify does not allow specifying
ports in [get_nets]. (In fact, nextpnr had a similar problem, but
it has also been fixed.)
The simplest way to address this is to refer to the interior net
(after the input buffer), which always works. The only downside
of this is that requesting a clock as a raw pin using
platform.request("clk", dir="-")
and directly applying a constraint to it could fail in some cases.
This is not a significant issue.
This is necessary for consistency, since for transparent read ports,
we currently do not support .en at all (it is fixed at 1) due to
YosysHQ/yosys#760. Before this commit, changing port transparency
would require adding or removing an assignment to .en, which is
confusing and error-prone.
Also, most read ports are always enabled, so this behavior is also
convenient.
Also, replace `bits, sign = x.shape()` with more idiomatic
`width, signed = x.shape()`.
This unifies all properties corresponding to `len(x)` to `x.width`.
(Not all values have a `width` property.)
Fixes#210.
