Welcome to Ruby-VPI

Ruby-VPI is a Ruby interface to Verilog VPI. It lets you create complex Verilog test benches easily and wholly in Ruby.

Features

• Supports the entire IEEE Std 1364-2005 VPI standard.

• Works with all major Verilog simulators available today.
  • Compile once (during installation) and use forever!

• Enables agile practices such as
  • test-driven development
  • behavior-driven development
  • rapid prototyping for design exploration

• Eliminates unneccesary work:
  • Specifications are readable, portable, and executable.
  • The automated test generator helps you accomodate design changes with minimal effort.

• Utilizes the power and elegance of Ruby:
  • Unlimited length integers
  • Regular expressions
  • Multi-threading
  • System calls and I/O
  • ad infinitum

• Gives you the freedom to study, modify, and distribute this software, in accordance with the GNU General Public License.

Applications

Here is a modest sampling of tasks, paraphrased from Pin Hong, that Ruby-VPI can be used to perform.

• Writing hardware models in Ruby
• Dumping/processing netlist data from Verilog database
• Dumping/processing simulation data
• Feeding dynamic simulation stimuli
• Back-annotating delay information
• Interactive logic simulation
• Building a distributed simulation

Appetizers

Here is a modest sampling of code to whet your appetite.

• Assign the value 2²⁰⁴⁸ to a register:

some_register.intVal = 2 ** 2048

• Check if all nets in a module are at high impedance:

some_module.all_net? { |net| net.z? }

• See a register’s path, width, and location (file & line number):

puts some_register

• Simulate fifteen clock cycles:

15.times { relay_verilog }