Companion to #8476, and this now moves all instance array and interface
array/modport array port expansion into elaboration. Fixes#2675.
Arrays of interface instances and interface array ports are now split
into their elements during elaboration, instead of after V3Width in
V3Inst::dearrayAll, which is removed.
Background: next to every interface instance 'intf ifs()', V3LinkCells
creates a companion variable 'ifs__Viftop' of type IfaceRefDType
referring to the instance, so the instantiating module can use the
interface as a value (in pin connections, virtual interface assignments,
arguments, ...) just like a module referring to it through an interface
port. For an array of instances 'intf ifs[N]()', this variable is an
unpacked array of IfaceRefDType, but an IfaceRefDType can only refer to
a single instance, so it must be split into a variable for each element,
and every use of the whole array replaced.
V3Param expands interface instance arrays like module instance arrays,
also splitting the __Viftop variable referencing the whole array into a
variable for each element cell ('ifs__BRA__i__KET____Viftop', the
companion of element cell 'ifs__BRA__i__KET__'), and splits each
interface array port into a variable for each element. The whole array
variables remain until all references to them are replaced, so V3LinkDot
can link hierarchical references to the correct specialization.
In V3Width, every reference to a whole interface array, including
hierarchical ones, is replaced by an AstInitArray of references to its
element variables, typed as the whole array, e.g. 'ifs' becomes
'{ifs[0], ifs[1], ...}. The AstInitArray keeps its own type, so its uses
are checked as those of the whole array. The whole array variables are
removed at the end of V3Width.
V3Width then treats a whole interface array replaced by an AstInitArray
as an ordinary unpacked array value:
- A constant select yields the element, a slice the selected elements.
- A pin of an element of a module instance array selects its part of an
interface array connection like any other connection.
- A pin of an interface array port is split into a pin for each element
port, connected left index to left index.
- A member of an element is referenced through the interface, as for
any other interface.
This supports slices of interface arrays, and interface ports of
multi-dimensional module instance arrays connected to interface arrays.
When a lot of combinational logic is driven from top level inputs,
work can be wasted evaluating that logic if the top level inputs don't
change.
This change adds an optimization by performing a change detect on the
top level inputs, and evaluate 'ico' logic only if the top level input
actually changed. This especially helps with --hierarchical/--lib-create
which runs the 'ico' of each sub-model in the eval settle loop.
This was observed to yield 40%+ run-time speedup on some partitioned
designs.
The added change detection is cheap, so it is emitted even if the 'ico'
region is small, and is on by default.
The optimization is only sound if the model itself does not write to the
top level inputs (otherwise the 'previous value' variables would be out
of sync, which are not updated by internal writes.). If we can detect a
top level input is written within the design, then for that input, we
fall back on always running the relevant logic. With --vpi we cannot
prove safety statically, so --vpi will disable this optimisation unless
explicitly enabled. (In which case it's the user's responsibility to not
write to top level inputs via the VPI.)
The typical find/if-not-exists-insert pattern can be achieved with 1
lookup instead of 2 using emplace with a sentinel value. Also maps value
initialize their values when inserted with the [] operator, this is
defined and so there is no need to explicitly insert zeroes for integer
values.
- Rename `--dump-treei` option to `--dumpi-tree`, which itself is now a
special case of `--dumpi-<tag>` where tag can be a magic word, or a
filename
- Control dumping via static `dump*()` functions, analogous to `debug()`
- Make dumping independent of the value of `debug()` (so dumping always
works even without the debug flag)
- Add separate `--dumpi-graph` for dumping V3Graphs, which is again a
special case of `--dumpi-<tag>`
- Alias `--dump-<tag>` to `--dumpi-<tag> 3` as before
Introduce the @astgen directives parsed by astgen, currently used for
the generation child node (operand) accessors. Please see the updated
internal documentation for details.