Pyverilog: A python-based hardware design processing toolkit for verilog HDL

Abstract

Verilog HDL is the most-used hardware design language for FPGAs. In this paper, we introduce Pyverilog, an open-source toolkit for RTL design analysis and code generation of Verilog HDL. Pyverilog offers efficient functionality to implement a CAD tool that treats Verilog HDL with small amount of effort. Pyverilog consists of four key libraries: (1) parser, (2) dataflow analyzer, (3) control-flow analyzer, and (4) Verilog code generator. We show a case study that uses Pyverilog as the fundamental back-end library. We have developed flipSyrup, a framework for efficient rapid prototyping by virtually enlarging FPGA resources. By using Pyverilog, the framework is implemented with small amount of additional codes; it is implemented in about 2700 lines of code in Python.