calyx
chisel
| calyx | chisel | |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 25 | |
| 447 | 3,738 | |
| 2.2% | 1.7% | |
| 9.4 | 9.7 | |
| 3 days ago | 6 days ago | |
| Rust | Scala | |
| MIT License | Apache License 2.0 |
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For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.
calyx
chisel
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Calyx: Intermediate Language for Hardware Accelerators
My first instinct was to ask "Does this play well with CIRCT?" And thankfully they answer that right away in the README.
I'm personally of the opinion that there is a LOT of room for improvement in the hardware design tooling space, but a combination of market consolidation, huge pressure to meet deadlines, and an existing functional pipeline of Verilog/VHDL talent is preventing changes.
That's not to say "Verilog/VHDL are bad", because clearly they've been good enough to support nearly all of the wonderful designs powering today's devices. But it is to say, "the startup scene for hardware will continue to look anemic compared to the SaaS scene until someone gives me all of the niceties I have for building SaaS tools in software."
A huge amount of ideas (and entire designs) start off as software sims, which enables kernel/compiler engineers to start building out support for new hardware before it's manufactured.
There is some interesting work going on at SiFive building hardware with Chisel[1], as well as some interesting work lead by a professor at William and Mary to improve simulations[2].
1: https://www.chisel-lang.org
2: https://github.com/sarchlab/akita
- Chisel: A Modern Hardware Design Language
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I may be creating an abomination
Inspired by Scala. Which can do a whole lot more, and worse. The currently biggest competitor to decades old hardware description languages is a Scala DSL.
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An addressable little explored language gap: HDL - Hardware Description Languages, any language used for electronic circuit design, description, and specs
Already mentioned Chisel: https://www.chisel-lang.org/
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Trying to learn and work with FPGAs
I'm also a hobbyist. There are a number of alternative HDLs out there, and as hobbyists we can deviate more from the mainstream of (System)Verilog and VHDL if we desire, though you'll still need to be able to read them. In the past I've done Verilog, but lately I've been using SpinalHDL and have been really enjoying it. Its close relative Chisel also makes appearances in the RISC-V space.
- Alternate HDL language and Physical Design/EDA tools?
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Learning VDHL after knowing Verilog
What are your thoughts on other HDLs like Chisel or BlueSpec when it comes to better type checking?
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Learning Verilog and FPGA
I started playing with FPGAs and HDLs a couple years ago with no hardware design background (I'm mostly a software architect/engineer) and in the end found that a "higher-level" HDL suited me better.
I chose Chisel (https://www.chisel-lang.org/) an HDL based on Scala (technically a Scala DSL) which can provide many facilities to hardware generation.
I'd highly advise looking into it although also knowing Verilog helps a lot.
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If you keep clicking "Give 15 seconds" on Lichess, eventually it overflows to a negative number and you win
But some go further and ask "what if when we add a soldering station on top of it?"
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What universities have good PhD programmes in digital design?
In recent years Chisel HDL, RISC V, and SiFive came out of their architecture group, to name a few.
What are some alternatives?
SpinalHDL - Scala based HDL
myhdl - The MyHDL development repository
amaranth - A modern hardware definition language and toolchain based on Python
cocotb - cocotb, a coroutine based cosimulation library for writing VHDL and Verilog testbenches in Python
skywater-pdk - Open source process design kit for usage with SkyWater Technology Foundry's 130nm node.
bsc - Bluespec Compiler (BSC)
circt - Circuit IR Compilers and Tools
axi - AXI SystemVerilog synthesizable IP modules and verification infrastructure for high-performance on-chip communication
XiangShan - Open-source high-performance RISC-V processor
chiseltest - The batteries-included testing and formal verification library for Chisel-based RTL designs.
opentitan - OpenTitan: Open source silicon root of trust
f4pga-arch-defs - FOSS architecture definitions of FPGA hardware useful for doing PnR device generation.