- Project: Bit-Serial CPU in VHDL
- Author: Richard James Howe
- Copyright: 2019,2020 Richard James Howe
- License: MIT
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://github.com/howerj/bit-serial
Processing data one bit at a time, since 2019.
This is a project for a bit-serial CPU, which is a CPU that has an architecture which processes a single bit at a time instead of in parallel like a normal CPU. This allows the CPU itself to be a lot smaller, the penalty is that it is a lot slower. The CPU itself is called bcpu.
The CPU is incredibly basic, lacking features required to support higher level programming (such as function calls). Instead such features can be emulated if they are needed. If such features are needed, or faster throughput (whilst still remaining quite small) other Soft-Core CPUs are available, such as the H2.
To build and run the C based simulator for the project, you will need a C compiler and 'make'. To build and run the VHDL simulator, you will need GHDL installed.
The cross compiler requires gforth, although a pre-compiled image is provided in case you do not have access to it, called 'bit.hex', this hex file contains a working Forth image. To run this:
make bit
./bit bit.hex
An example session of the simulator running is:
You should be greeted by a Forth prompt, type 'words' and hit a carriage return to get a list of defined functions.
The target FPGA that the system is built for is a Spartan-6, for a Nexys 3 development board. Xilinx ISE 14.7 was used to build the project.
The following 'make' targets are available:
make
By default the VHDL test bench is built and simulated in GHDL. This requires gforth to assemble the test program bit.fth into a file readable by the simulator.
make run
This target builds the C based simulator, assembles the test program and runs the simulator on the assembled program.
make synthesis implementation bitfile
This builds the project for the FPGA.
make upload
This uploads the project to the Nexys 3 board. This requires that 'djtgcfg' is installed, which is a tool provided by Digilent.
make documentation
This turns this 'readme.md' file into a HTML file.
make clean
Cleans up the project.
The tool-chain for the device is used to build an image for a Forth interpreter, more specifically a Forth interpreter similar to a dialect of Forth known as 'eForth', it differs between eForth in order to save on space which is at a premium. You should be greeted with an eForth prompt when running the 'make run' target that looks something like this:
$ make run
./bit bit.hex
eForth 3.1
You can see all of the defined words (or functions) by typing in 'words' and hitting return.
$ make run
./bit bit.hex
eForth 3.1
words
Arithmetic in Forth in done using Reverse Polish Notation:
2 2 + . cr
Will print out '4'. This is not the place for a Forth tutorial, the Forth interpreter is mainly here to demonstrate that the bit-serial CPU is working correctly and can be used for useful purposes. No demonstration would be complete without a 'Hello, World' program, however:
: hello cr ." Hello, World!" ;
hello
Go use your favorite search engine to find a Forth tutorial.
Often in an FPGA design there is spare Dual Port Block RAM (BRAM) available, either because only part of the BRAM module is being used or because it is not needed entirely. Adding a new CPU however is a bigger decision than using spare BRAM capacity, it can take up quite a lot of floor space, and perhaps other precious resources. If this is the case then adding this CPU costs practically nothing in terms of floor space, the main cost will be in development time.
In short, the project may be useful if:
- FPGA Floor space is at a premium in your design.
- You have spare memory for the program and storage.
- You need a programmable CPU that supports a reasonable instruction set.
- Execution speed is not a concern.
There were two use cases that the author had in mind when setting out to build this system:
- As a CPU driving a low-baud UART
- As a controller for a VT100 terminal emulator that would control cursor position and parse escape codes, setting colors and attributes in a hardware based text-terminal (this was to replace an existing VHDL only system that had spare capacity in the FPGAs dual-port block RAMs used to store the Font and text).
The tool-chain consists of a cross compiler written in Forth, it itself implements a virtual machine on top of which a Forth interpreter is written. The accumulator machine lacks call/returns, and a stack, so these have to be implemented. The meta-compiler (a Forth specific term for what is a more widely known as a cross-compiler) is available in bit.fth.
As the instruction set is anemic and CPU features lacking it is best to target the virtual machine and program in Forth than it is to program in assembly.
Despite the inherently slow speed of the design and the further slow down executing code on top of a virtual machine the interpreter is plenty fast enough for interactive use, slowing down noticeably when division has to be performed.
The CPU is a 16-bit design, in principle a normal bit parallel CPU design could be implemented of the same CPU, but in practice you not end up with a CPU like this one if you remove the bit-serial restriction.
The CPU has 16 operation, each instruction consists of a 4-bit operation field and a 12-bit operand. Depending on the CPU mode that operand and instruction that operand can either be a literal or an address to load a 16-bit word from (addresses are word and not byte oriented, so the lowest bit of an address specifies the next word not byte). Only the first 8 operations can have their operand indirected, which is deliberate.
The CPU is an accumulator machine, all instructions either modify or use the accumulator to store operation results in them. The CPU has three registers including the accumulator, the other two are the program counter which is automatically incremented after each instruction excluding the jump instructions (the SET instruction is also excluded when setting the program counter only) and a flags register.
The instructions are:
| ----------- | -------------------------------------- | --------------------------------- | ---------------- |
| Instruction | C Operation | Description | Cycles |
| ----------- | -------------------------------------- | --------------------------------- | ---------------- |
| OR | acc |= lop | Bitwise Or | [3 or 5]*(N+1) |
| AND | acc &= lop | Bitwise And | [3 or 5]*(N+1) |
| XOR | acc ^= lop | Bitwise Exclusive Or | [3 or 5]*(N+1) |
| ADD | acc += lop | Add with carry, sets carry | [3 or 5]*(N+1) |
| LSHIFT | acc = acc << lop (or rotate left) | Shift left or Rotate left | [3 or 5]*(N+1) |
| RSHIFT | acc = acc >> lop (or rotate right) | Shift right or Rotate right | [3 or 5]*(N+1) |
| LOAD | acc = memory(lop) | Load | [4 or 6]*(N+1) |
| STORE | memory(lop) = acc | Store | [4 or 6]*(N+1) |
| LOADC | acc = memory(op) | Load from memory constant addr | 4*(N+1) |
| STOREC | memory(op) = acc | Store to memory constant addr | 4*(N+1) |
| LITERAL | acc = op | Load literal into accumulator | 3*(N+1) |
| UNUSED | N/A | Unused instruction | 3*(N+1) |
| JUMP | pc = op | Unconditional Jump | 2*(N+1) |
| JUMPZ | if(!acc){pc = op } | Jump If Zero | [2 or 3]*(N+1) |
| SET | if(op&1){flg=acc}else{pc=acc} | Set Register | 3*(N+1) |
| GET | if(op&1){acc=flg}else{acc=pc} | Get Register | 3*(N+1) |
| ----------- | -------------------------------------- | --------------------------------- | ---------------- |
- pc = program counter
- acc = accumulator
- indir = indirect flag
- lop = instruction operand if indirect flag not set, otherwise it equals to the memory location pointed to by the operand
- op = instruction operand
- flg = flags register
- N = bit width, which is 16.
The number of cycles an instruction takes to complete depends on whether it performs an indirection, or in the case of GET/SET it depends if it it setting the program counter (2 cycles only) or the flags register (3 cycles), or performing an I/O operation (4 cycles), getting the flags or program counter always costs 3 cycles.
The flags in the 'flg' register are:
| ---- | --- | --------------------------------------- |
| Flag | Bit | Description |
| ---- | --- | --------------------------------------- |
| Cy | 0 | Carry flag, set by addition instruction |
| Z | 1 | Zero flag |
| Ng | 2 | Negative flag |
| R | 3 | Reset Flag - Resets the CPU |
| HLT | 4 | Halt Flag - Stops the CPU |
| ---- | --- | --------------------------------------- |
- The carry flag (Cy) is set by the ADD instruction, it can also be set and cleared with the GET/SET instructions.
- 'Z' is set whenever the accumulator is zero.
- 'Ng' is set whenever the accumulator has its highest bit set, indicating that the accumulator is negative.
- 'R', Reset flag, this resets the CPU immediately, only the HLT flag takes precedence.
- 'HLT', The halt flag takes priority over everything else, sending the CPU into a halt state.
There is really not much else to this CPU from the point of view of a user of this core, integrating this core into another system is more complicated however, you will need to be far more aware of timing of signals and their enable lines. Much like the processor, a single bit bus in conjunction with an enable is used to communicate with the outside world.
The internal state of the CPU is minimal, to make a working system the memory and I/O controller will need (shift) registers to store the address and input/output.
The CPU state-machine is:
And the CPU bus timing diagram:
The system has a minimal set of peripherals; a bank of switches with LEDs next to each switch and a UART capable of transmission and reception, other peripherals could be added as needed.
The I/O register map for the device is very small as there are very few peripherals.
| ------- | -------------- |
| Address | Name |
| ------- | -------------- |
| 0x4000 | LED/Switches |
| 0x4001 | UART TX/RX |
| 0x4002 | UART Clock TX* |
| 0x4003 | UART Clock RX* |
| 0x4004 | UART Control* |
| ------- | -------------- |
These registers are turned off by default
and will need to be enabled during synthesis.
- LED/Switches
A bank of switches, non-debounced, with LED lights next to them.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| F | E | D | C | B | A | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | Switches 1 = on, 0 = off | READ
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | LED 1 = on, 0 = off | WRITE
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
- UART TX/RX
The UART TX/RX register is used to read and write data bytes to the UART and check on the UART status. The UART has a FIFO that is used to capture the results of the UART. The usage of which is non-optional.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| F | E | D | C | B | A | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |TFF|TFE| |RFF|RFE| RX DATA BYTE | READ
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |TFW| |RFR| | TX DATA BYTE | WRITE
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
RFE = RX FIFO EMPTY
RFF = RX FIFO FULL
RFR = RX FIFO READ ENABLE
TFE = TX FIFO EMPTY
TFF = TX FIFO FULL
TFW = TX FIFO WRITE ENABLE
- UART Clock TX
The UART Transmission clock, independent from the Reception Clock, is controllable via this register.
Defaults are: 115200 Baud
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| F | E | D | C | B | A | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | READ
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| UART TX CLOCK DIVISOR | WRITE
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
- UART Clock RX
The UART Reception clock, independent from the Transmission Clock, is controllable via this register.
Defaults are: 115200 Baud
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| F | E | D | C | B | A | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | READ
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| UART RX CLOCK DIVISOR | WRITE
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
- UART Clock Control
This clock is used to control UART options such as the number of bits,
Defaults are: 8N1, no parity
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| F | E | D | C | B | A | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | READ
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | DATA BITS |STPBITS|EPA|UPA| WRITE
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
UPA = USE PARITY BITS
EPA = EVEN PARITY
STPBITS = Number of stop bits
DATA BITS = Number of data bits
This is a very specialized core, that cannot be emphasized enough. It executes slowly, but is small. Other, larger core (but still relatively small) may be useful for your needs. In terms of engineering trade offs this design takes things to the extreme in one direction only.
The core should be written to be portable to different FPGAs, however the author only tests what they have available (Xilinx, Spartan-6).
- The H2
Another small core, based on the J1. This core executes quite quickly (1 instruction per CPU cycle) and uses few resources, although much more than this core. The instruction set is quite dense and allows for higher level programming than just using straight assembler. See https://github.com/howerj/forth-cpu.
This CPU core has deeper stacks, more instructions, and interrupts, which the original J1 core lacks. It is also written in VHDL instead of Verilog.
- Tiny CPU in a CPLD
This is a 8-bit CPU designed to fit in the limited resources of a CPLD:
See https://www.bigmessowires.com/cpu-in-a-cpld/ and https://www.bigmessowires.com/tinycpufiles.zip.
It is written in Verilog, it is based on the 6502, implementing a subset of its instructions. It is probably easier to directly program than this bit-serial CPU, and roughly the same size (although a direct comparison is difficult). It can address less memory (1K) without bank-switching. There is also a different version made with 7400 series logic gates https://www.bigmessowires.com/nibbler/.
- Leros and Lipsi
See https://github.com/leros-dev/leros, also https://github.com/schoeberl/lipsi,
The state-machine diagram was made using Graphviz, and can be viewed and edited immediately by copying the following text into GraphvizOnline.
digraph bcpu {
reset -> fetch [label="start"]
fetch -> execute
fetch -> indirect [label="flag(IND) = '1'\n and op < 8"]
fetch -> reset [label="flag(RST) = '1'"]
fetch -> halt [label="flag(HLT) = '1'"]
indirect -> operand
operand -> execute
execute -> advance
execute -> store [label="op = 'store'"]
execute -> load [label="op = 'load'"]
execute -> fetch [label="(op = 'jumpz' and acc = 0)\n or op ='jump'"]
store -> advance
load -> advance
advance -> fetch
halt -> halt
}
For timing diagrams, use Wavedrom with the following text:
{signal: [
{name: 'clk', wave: 'pp...p...p...p...p..'},
{name: 'cycle', wave: '22222222222222222222', data: ['prev', 'init','0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', '10', '11', '12', '13', '14', '15', 'next', 'rest']},
{name: 'cmd', wave: 'x2..................', data: ['HALT']},
{name: 'ie', wave: 'x0..................'},
{name: 'oe', wave: 'x0..................'},
{name: 'ae', wave: 'x0..................'},
{name: 'o', wave: 'x0..................'},
{name: 'i', wave: 'x...................'},
{name: 'halt', wave: 'x1..................'},
{},
{name: 'clk', wave: 'pp...p...p...p...p..'},
{name: 'cycle', wave: '22222222222222222222', data: ['prev', 'init','0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', '10', '11', '12', '13', '14', '15', 'next', 'rest']},
{name: 'cmd', wave: 'x2................xx', data: ['ADVANCE']},
{name: 'ie', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{name: 'oe', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{name: 'ae', wave: 'x01...............0x'},
{name: 'o', wave: 'x0================0x', data: ['0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', '10', '11', 'F12', 'F13', 'F14', 'F15']},
{name: 'i', wave: 'x.................xx'},
{name: 'halt', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{},
{name: 'clk', wave: 'pp...p...p...p...p..'},
{name: 'cycle', wave: '22222222222222222222', data: ['prev', 'init','0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', '10', '11', '12', '13', '14', '15', 'next', 'rest']},
{name: 'cmd', wave: 'x2................xx', data: ['OPERAND or LOAD']},
{name: 'ie', wave: 'x01...............0x'},
{name: 'oe', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{name: 'ae', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{name: 'o', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{name: 'i', wave: 'x.================xx', data: ['0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', '10', '11', '12', '13', '14', '15']},
{name: 'halt', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{},
{name: 'clk', wave: 'pp...p...p...p...p..'},
{name: 'cycle', wave: '22222222222222222222', data: ['prev', 'init','0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', '10', '11', '12', '13', '14', '15', 'next', 'rest']},
{name: 'cmd', wave: 'x2................xx', data: ['STORE']},
{name: 'ie', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{name: 'oe', wave: 'x01...............0x'},
{name: 'ae', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{name: 'o', wave: 'x0================0x', data: ['0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', '10', '11', '12', '13', '14', '15']},
{name: 'i', wave: 'x.................xx'},
{name: 'halt', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{},
{name: 'clk', wave: 'pp...p...p...p...p..'},
{name: 'cycle', wave: '22222222222222222222', data: ['prev', 'init','0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', '10', '11', '12', '13', '14', '15', 'next', 'rest']},
{name: 'cmd', wave: 'x2................xx', data: ['INDIRECT or EXECUTE: LOAD, STORE, JUMP, JUMPZ']},
{name: 'ie', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{name: 'oe', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{name: 'ae', wave: 'x01...............0x'},
{name: 'o', wave: 'x0================0x', data: ['0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', '10', '11', 'F12', 'F13', 'F14', 'F15']},
{name: 'i', wave: 'x.................xx'},
{name: 'halt', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{},
{name: 'clk', wave: 'pp...p...p...p...p..'},
{name: 'cycle', wave: '22222222222222222222', data: ['prev', 'init','0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', '10', '11', '12', '13', '14', '15', 'next', 'rest']},
{name: 'cmd', wave: 'x2................xx', data: ['EXECUTE: NORMAL INSTRUCTION']},
{name: 'ie', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{name: 'oe', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{name: 'ae', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{name: 'o', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{name: 'i', wave: 'x.................xx'},
{name: 'halt', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{},
{name: 'clk', wave: 'pp...p...p...p...p..'},
{name: 'cycle', wave: '22222222222222222222', data: ['prev', 'init','0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', '10', '11', '12', '13', '14', '15', 'next', 'rest']},
{name: 'cmd', wave: 'x2................xx', data: ['FETCH']},
{name: 'ie', wave: 'x01...............0x'},
{name: 'oe', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{name: 'ae', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{name: 'o', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{name: 'i', wave: 'x.================xx', data: ['0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', '10', '11', '12', '13', '14', '15']},
{name: 'halt', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{},
{name: 'clk', wave: 'pp...p...p...p...p..'},
{name: 'cycle', wave: '22222222222222222222', data: ['prev', 'init','0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', '10', '11', '12', '13', '14', '15', 'next', 'rest']},
{name: 'cmd', wave: 'x2................xx', data: ['RESET']},
{name: 'ie', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{name: 'oe', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{name: 'ae', wave: 'x01...............0x'},
{name: 'o', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{name: 'i', wave: 'x.................xx'},
{name: 'halt', wave: 'x0.................x'},
{},
]}
That's all folks!
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