Getting Started

The tool is written in Scala and uses SBT as a build tool as well as Scalatest for testing. The minimal requirements for creating the cores is

• SBT Scala build tool which will automatically download test configuration
• Scala Scala is also required but might be automatically downloaded through SBT

Optionally an IDE is useful and the distribution contains a project file for IDEA.

• Jetbrains IDEA : Integrated Development Environment for editting

The tool uses the following tools for simulation and data analysis.

• Verilator : Free Verilog simulator
• Python with Numpy and Scipy : Used for analysis and plotting of results

Other simulators should work as well but will probably require a bit of setup, test bench conversion and potentially some generator fixes. The target RTL was used for a production FPGA but new constructs have been added and the cores have not been taken through a synthesis flow.

Running Basic Test

Running tests can be done either on the command line using SBT or inside IDEA. The command line usage is shown below.

• sbt test-only test-name

A couple of examples are shown below which run basic tests.

• sbt test-only com.simplifide.generate.neural.Two6x6x6
• sbt test-only com.simplifide.generate.neural.Four12

An example section of the test code is shown below. There are multiple options for the operation of the test including plotting of the results when complete as well as waveform generation.

class Two6x6x6 extends TwoStageTest {
  override def blockName: String = "two6x6"
  override lazy val dimensions = Seq((6,6),(6,6))
  override def waveformEnable = true
  override lazy val inputType:BasicNetworkTest.INPUT_TYPE = BasicNetworkTest.IDENT_TYPE
  override val plot:Boolean = true
  override val failThreshold = Some(0.1)
}