jpt13653903/alcha

A New Programming Language for FPGA Projects

alcha's Issues

Phoenix the Arthitecture

Once the thesis is complete, phoenix the compiler architecture so that the built-in data structures, data flow and overall concept follows the design presented in the thesis.

The thesis also introduces new features (nested attribute dictionaries, stream-lined translation phases, "this" reference within classes, etc.), all of which require major rework on the compiler.

MD5 Tags

For compiler: look at MD5 sum, not the modification date.

Nested Comments in Vim

When the comment closes as "+/+/", the comment region is not ended. Putting a space "+/ +/" hides the symptom.

Parse each input file once only

Keep import AST in a BST and parse the file only once.

Just after parsing to AST, simplify the AST as far as possible?

Virtual Pins

Alcha must support the concept of "virtual" pins. If a pin does not specify a location, it's automatically marked as virtual (turned into a net in Xilinx (which does not support virtual pins), and marked as a virtual pin in the QSF in Altera).

Planning

• Generate tasks based on the TOPLAS and SIPS 2018 articles, all sorted into the milestones
• Assign due dates to the milestones (adding new milestones as required)

Bring the Wiki up to date

Once the thesis is complete, transfer the thesis version of the EBNF and language specification to the Wiki.

• Scanner EBNF
• Parser EBNF
• Verification EBNF
• Language Specification

Comments

The first comment of the file is associated with the file (it is the header).

Any other comment is associated with the next expression (or structure).

Make this part of the parser. The comments must follow all the way to the final output.

Update parser

There has been some major updates to the EBNF. The parser needs to be brought in line.

Compile message comments

Comments that start with !! must be printed out to the command-line while the compilation is in progress...

This can be used for To-Do messages, etc...

Scripts must be evaluated only when required

Scripts must be evaluated only when required:

• Any translation unit that the script depends on have changed
• Any translation unit that calls the script have changed
• Any file that the script reads have changed

Auto Counters

Abstract the time between signals so that Alcha automatically generate the counters, etc. for something like the timing generator.

Location Constraints

Object attributs should allow location constraints, so that a module instance (class instance) can be constrained to a fixed region of the FPGA fabric.

Another application is to constrain a PLL to a specific resource, as is required for the MAX10 ADC PLL.

Numerical time-stamp

Instead of __DATE__ and __TIME__ strings, make them numerical instead...

Or perhaps have __YEAR__, __MONTH__, etc. as num type...

Invalid space characters

The current scanner assumes that U+200C and U+200D are spaces, where they are actually joiners and should not be handled as spaces.

The Unicode standard specifically states that U+2060 must be ignored for "word segmentation".

Similar with U+180E. The standard states that "MVS is not a suffix but an integral part of
the word stem"

Automated Reports

The compiler should produce LaTeX / HTML-based reports on:

• Simulation report
• State-machine interaction
• Multi-cycle paths
• Clocks
• etc.