prepared by P. Bakowski
Contents: reusability concept, modeling space cube, generic models, configurable models, exercises
According to a SEMATECH study ; in 1995 design productivity increased merely 21% while the complexity of designs rose around 50%.
The timing related generics allow to modify or adapt the temporal behavior of the component model. For example, a simple clock circuit may provide different signal frequency when animated with different period parameter. The content related generics may provide the components with the functional cycles of required length. For example, one can build a modulo N counter , where N is a generic parameter. The structure related generics allows to modify the size of signals and variables in order to provide smaller or bigger structures. For example, a memory block may be instantiated with different word size and different capacity. Still another way to provide the structural modifications/adaptations is to use the generate statement with generic parameters. For example, a counter circuit built from simple flip-flops may be generated in this way. The content and the structure related generics can be applied for simulation as well as for synthetizable models; the timing related generics are valid only for simulation models.
VHDL supports hierarchical modeling . It means that the genericity may also be hierarchical. The higher level modules or components may influence the values of lower level modules or sub-components. However, there is no way to propagate the generic values from lower to higher composition levels. It means that the component must adapt itself to the system; but system cannot adapt itself to the component emanating generic values.
The selection of sub-components is performed through the configuration statement such as :
where:
Exercises