Chisel Hardware Construction Language: A Radical Rethink for Embedded System Hardware Design
A Brief Introduction to the Project:
Introducing Chisel, an open-source GitHub project initiated by the world-class ChipAlliance, which uses groundbreaking techniques for rethinking embedded system hardware building. Chisel, an acronym for Constructing Hardware In a Scala Embedded Language, empowers developers to create intricate components for diverse purposes. Its relevance to the hardware design landscape cannot be overstated, as it revolutionizes the much-anticipated integration of a hardware coding environment with a software abstraction, facilitating the creation of complex hardware.
Project Overview:
The primary goal of Chisel is to provide a new hardware construction language that marries software and hardware development strategies while adhering to the principles of modularity, extensibility, and reusability. The project aims to deliver a reusable and extensible embedded hardware construction library that adds a new dimension to the efficiently hierarchical design. Its target audience comprises hardware designers, embedded system developers, and software developers striving to work on hardware-specific tasks.
Project Features:
Chisel brings to the table a multitude of features that redefine embedded system hardware designing. It utilizes the flexibility of a high-level language Scala, and the rigorousness of a specialized, time-accurate hardware compiler to cut down on time-to-market. Chisel provides developers with the leverage to write parametrized implementations, design generative circuits, and create both ASICs and FPGAs. It promotes stricter design rules that steer clear of classic Verilog pitfalls while maintaining back-compatibility.
Technology Stack:
Chisel uses the power of Scala, a modern high-level programming language that embraces object-oriented and functional programming with static types, fusing them with the accuracy of hardware compilation. The project leverages dependency injection and aliases to manage complexity as the modules evolve. It uses the widely-recognized FIRRTL (Flexible Intermediate Representation for RTL) as an internal compiler, providing an interoperable intermediate layer from which to build a design flow.
Project Structure and Architecture:
Chisel project comprises libraries for digital circuits, The Chisel3 core, a FIRRTL repository, and a Chisel test harness for simulation. These elements are built upon the fundamental concepts of hardware construction, delivering design hierarchically from components to modules. Its generators enable the creation of a broad set of hardware designs from a single input description.
