• Human Resource Machine CPU (Verilog)
• Introduction
  • CPU Architecture components
  • Project status
  • Disclaimer
• Instruction Set Architecture
  • Assembler
• Microarchitecture
  • Top module
  • Control Unit
  • Inbox
  • Outbox
  • Register
  • Memory
  • PC (Program Counter)
  • PROG (Program ROM)
  • IR (Instruction Register)
  • ALU
• Simulations in Logisim
  • Year 4
  • Year 32
• Automated test (simulations)
  • Generate new tests
• Synthesis to FPGA
  • Top module design
  • How to build and flash in the FPGA
• Hardware tests
• Graphical User Interface (GUI)
  • GUI Screenshots
  • GUI Features
  • How to build the GUI (Linux)
• Continuous Integration (CI)
• Makefiles features
• Tools used in this project:
• External files

This personal project aims at designing a soft core CPU in Verilog, synthetizable in an FPGA that will behave like the gameplay of Human Resource Machine by Tomorrow Corp.

Here's an extract of an article on HRM, posted on IEEE's Spectrum site:

In this game the player takes on the role of an office worker who must handle numbers and letters arriving on an “in” conveyor belt and put the desired results on an “out” conveyor belt.

[...]Those in the know will recognize the office worker as a register, the temporary workspace on the office floor as random access memory, and many of the challenges as classic introductory computer science problems.[...]

My HRM CPU design is an 8-bit multi-cycle RISC CPU based on Harvard architecture with variable length instructions.

TL;DR: For the impatients, you can jump to these demos (with videos) at the end:

• HRM Year 4 in Logisim
• HRM Year 32 in Logisim
• Demo of 3 programs running on HRMCPU in the Icezum Alhambra FPGA
• Twitter moment with most of the related tweets
• Want to see the GUI and play with the HRMCPU (no FPGA?)

We can see how the game actually represents a CPU and its internal components:

• I'm a passionate hobbist with a recent interest in digital electronics: I'm not a Computer Science Engineer, nor a hardware engineer. I enjoy learning from books, youtube videos and tutorials online. This project is about practicing and learning.
• This is a strictly personal project, with entertaining and educational objectives exlusively, not commercial nor industrial.
• It's not optimized in any way. I'll be happy if it even gets to work. [EDIT] It actually does work, in Logisim, Verilog simulation, and synthesized in the Icezum Alhambra FPGA.
• It's a work in progress, so it's incomplete (and may never be complete).
• Although I try to be thorough, this documentation is also incomplete (and may never be complete).

The instruction set is the same as in the HRM game. It's made of a limited set of 11 instructions, 6 of which can function in direct and indirect adressing modes.

For now, the latest version of the instruction set is described in this Google Spreadsheet.

The following picture shows the instruction set format, and corresponding machine language:

The current implementation status is represented by the color in the first column (Green: implemented in Logisim, white: pending).

I have added a couple of instructions that were not in the HRM game: SET, and HALT.

Instruction are encoded with 1 word (8 bit). Some instructions have one operand which is also encoded with 8 bits. So the length of instruction is variable: some are 1 word wide, others are two words wide.

I have prepared a rudimentary assembler that translates an HRM program to the corresponding machine language that can then be loaded into the PROG (Program ROM).

This assembler is a shell script that uses awk(1).

Usage:

$ assembler prog

Output:

• prog.BIN: the memory dump that can be loaded into Logisim ROM
• prog.TXT: pretty print of the program with addresses, machine language, labels, and assembly instructions

Example:

Given a simple program that we save in FILE:

start:
  INBOX
  OUTBOX
  JUMP start

Let's run the assembler:

./assembler FILE

We'll get:

start:
00: 00    ; INBOX 
01: 10    ; OUTBOX 
02: 80 00 ; JUMP start

And the corresponding machine language memory dump ready to load into PROG (in Logisim):

v2.0 raw
00 10 80 00 

Note: The same machine language format is also used later to load into the Verilog design (removing the first line v2.0 raw).

The microarchitecture is loosely inspired from MIPS architecture. This CPU is a multi-cycle CPU with a Harvard architecture (program is held in a different memory as general memory).

The following block diagram shows all the components, the data path and control path (in red dashed line):

This is the corresponding circuit diagram generated by Yosys from the Verilog HDL code I have written:

The sections below detail each module individually.

The top module shows all the inner modules, the Data Path and Control Path:

TODO:

• Document hrmcpu testbench & waveform screenshots

The Control Unit is a Finite State Machine. It takes as input the instruction, and some external signals, and generate control signals that will orchestrate the data flow along the data path.

The following chart shows all the steps and control signals involved in each instruction:

Control Signals:

Below is the corresponding FSM:

Note:

• Logisim FSM addon tool doesn't seem to allow transition to the same state, that is why the HALT state doesn't have any transition out of it. It should loop on itself. Anyway in Logisim's simulation it behaves as expected.

I have added a debug mode (which can be enabled by asserting the debug signal to 1). When in debug mode, the FSM will pause right before loading the next instruction into the Instruction Register (IR). It will then resume execution when the user press the "nxtInstr" button. This allows the user to run the program in an Instruction by Instruction fashion, and inspect the state of all the components after an instruction has run, and before we run the next.

We load the Inbox with some elements. The first element of the inbox is expected to be the length of the inbox (that is the number of elements).

In an initial design, the length of the inbox was fixed (see the 04 at the input of the comparator?).

Then I designed a small FSM inside the Inbox module that reads the first element, and sets the length of the queue. It then position the cursor on the actual first element of the Inbox, ready for the program to consume it.

This is the resulting design:

The INBOX FSM is very simple. (for some reason, I was unable to create it in Logisim with 2-bit states encoding, that's probaby a bug. That's why it has 3 bit state encoding.)

Notes:

• When all the elements have been read (popped out of the IN belt), the empty signal is asserted. Once empty = 1, any INBOX instruction will wait until a new element is loaded in INBOX. At this time, the elements in INBOX si fixed, so that's equivalent to ending the program. Whenever I'll add a UART-RX at this end, it will allow the CPU to process items endlessly.

[Update] The Verilog implementation is based on a FIFO queue, and doesn't require anymore to indicate the number of elements as first element.

• 0x00-0x1f: 32 x 1 byte, general purpose ram (Tiles in HRM)

• Reinitialized to 0x00 upon reset
• Increments by 1 (1byte) when wPC=1
• Branch signals:
  • Inconditional jump (JUMP) when ( branch && ijump )
  • Conditional jumps (JUMPZ/N) only when ( branch && aluFlag )

The ALU can perform 6 different operations selectable via aluCtl[2:0]:

• 4 Arithmetic operations, selectable via aluCtl[1:0]:

• 2 comparison operations, which will be used in JUMPZ/JUMPN, selectable via aluCtl[2]:

This is a simple example of the game, level 4: in this level, the worker has to take each pair of elements from Inbox, and put them on the Outbox in reverse order.

First let see the level in the game:

Now, we'll load the same program in our PROG memory, load the INBOX, clear the OUTBOX, and run the simulation in Logisim.

Program:

init:
  00: 00    ; INBOX 
  01: 30 2  ; COPYTO 2
  03: 00    ; INBOX 
  04: 10    ; OUTBOX 
  05: 20 2  ; COPYFROM 2
  07: 10    ; OUTBOX 
  08: 80 00 ; JUMP init

(This is the output of my Assembler)

The corresponding Logisim memory dump (machine language) is:

v2.0 raw
00 30 2 00 10 20 2 10 80 00 

We load the PROG in Logisim:

Inbox:

The first element of the INBOX memory is the length (number of elements) of the INBOX.

In Logisim that is:

v2.0 raw
06 03 09 5a 48 02 07

We load the INBOX in Logisim:

We clear the OUTBOX:

And we run the simulation:

Once the CPU halts (after trying to run INBOX instruction on an empty INBOX), we can see the resulting OUTBOX memory:

Indeed, we can verify that the elements have been inverted two by two:

This level is more complex. In level 32 there are 14 letters on the tiles, plus a 0. For each letters that comes into the Inbox, you have to compute how many tiles have the same letter, and send the total count to the Outbox.

This is how I did it in the real game:

Now let see how my HRM CPU behaves with the same program. First let's have a look at the program itself:

Here's my solution for Level 32. It involves direct (COPYFROM 14) and indirect adressing mode (COPYFROM [19]).

init:
    00: 20 0e ; COPYFROM 14
    02: 30 13 ; COPYTO 19
    04: 30 10 ; COPYTO 16
    06: 00 00 ; INBOX 
    07: 30 0f ; COPYTO 15
nexttile:
    09: 28 13 ; COPYFROM [19]
    0b: 90 19 ; JUMPZ outputcount
    0d: 50 0f ; SUB 15
    0f: 90 15 ; JUMPZ inccount
inctileaddr:
    11: 60 13 ; BUMP+ 19
    13: 80 09 ; JUMP nexttile
inccount:
    15: 60 10 ; BUMP+ 16
    17: 80 11 ; JUMP inctileaddr
outputcount:
    19: 20 10 ; COPYFROM 16
    1b: 10 00 ; OUTBOX 
    1c: 80 00 ; JUMP init

(This is the output of my Assembler)

The corresponding Logisim memory dump (machine languag, ready for loading into Logisim) is:

v2.0 raw
20 0e 30 13 30 10 00 30 0f 28 13 90 19 50 0f 90 15 60 13 80 09 60 10 80 11 20 10 10 80 00 

Below we can see it is loaded into the program memory (PROG) of the CPU:

Now let's see the Inbox:

We'll load 5 elements: 1, 2, 5, 3 and 4 into the INBOX. As we have to load first the number of elements, it is in total 6 items:

In Logisim format that is:

v2.0 raw
05 01 02 05 03 04

We load the INBOX in Logisim:

In this level, we also have to pre-load the tiles in MEMORY. Here's the file:

v2.0 raw
02 01 04 02 03 04 01 02 01 04 03 02 01 02 00

Let's pause and count mentally how many of each item we have in the Tiles:

(That is what we expect to get in the OUTBOX)

Before running the program, let's clear the OUTBOX:

And finally we run the program:

The program will finish when the last item in the inbox is processed. Let's see the result we get in OUTBOX:

Indeed, we can verify that this is the total count of each item (from the INBOX) in the tiles: 4 x 0x01, 5 x 0x02, 0 x 0x05, 2 x 0x03 and 3 x 0x04.

So it works!!!

[TODO]

• show hrmcpu module testbench
• explain folders structure
• explain regression test suite structure and how it works
  • Makefile, tester.v, tester.mk,
  • Icarus Verilog MACRO injection from Makefile
  • If the any source file, or program or ram file has changed, the necesarry tests (depending on the modified files) will be rerun (that's the power of using Makefile!)
  • Generic testbench + tests folders (one per game level)
    • program and initial ram file
    • as many pairs of input and expected output files as tests we want to do
    • Makefile finds all levels and run all tests within a level (until a test would fail)
  • show sample tests
  • how to run tests

From verilog/test

Run all tests:

$ make -s 
BUMP+: Success, all tests passed
Echo: Test [test01] OK
Echo: Success, all tests passed
Year-01: Success, all tests passed
Year-03: Success, all tests passed
Year-04: Success, all tests passed
Year-32: Success, all tests passed

Run all tests of 1 level:

$ cd Year-04
$ make -s -f ../tester.mk
Year-04: Test [test02] OK
Year-04: Test [test01] OK
Year-04: Success, all tests passed

Run only 1 test of a particular level

$ cd Year-04
$ make -s -f ../tester.mk test02.check
Year-04: Test [test02] OK

Inspect a particular tests and traces: for that we need to run the test manually, so it will generate the trace for Gtkwave:

$ cd Year-32-NOP
$ make -f ../tester.mk clean
$ make -f ../tester.mk test01.test.out

In addition to test01.test_out (output of the simulation), this will generate the test01.lxt (interLaced eXtensible Trace file), suitable for Gtkwave inspection:

$ gtkwave test01.lxt

Clean all test files

$ make -s clean

Some levels have a test generator, so it's easy to generate new random tests (random input and the corresponding expected output). Insite the gen_test.sh you can see information about size of input, number of tests to run...

Generally, each test will feature:

• a random input length
• random input values
• random timing for when to input each value

Check in verilog/test/*/ for the gen_test.sh script. Simply run the script in the corresponding level test folder.

Some tests also have a gen_prog.sh script that allows to generate new random programs (usually it randomizes the memory addresses used in the program).

The top modules is the one that will connect the IO pins, the UART-RX to the CPU's Inbox, the CPU's Outbox to the UART-TX. I have also added a small controller that to only pop data out of the Outbox when it's not empty AND UART-TX is not busy.

From verilog directory:

make LEVEL=Echo upload

From a clean folder, it will generate the bitstream and program it to the FPGA connected via USB.

The Makefile offers several handy targets to do different actions, per module:

If no module is specified with MODULE=<module>, it will default to MODULE=top.

Additionally:

• a board can be specified: BOARD=<board>, it will default to MODULE=alhambra (board must be defined first in Board.mk)
• a game level should be specified: LEVEL=<level>. Level files must exist in /test/. See examples.

[TODO]: add more detail

• Write (or choose a program) and eventually initial ram file.
  • For example: use make PROGRAM=test/Year-32/program ROMFILE=test/Year-32/ram upload
• Convert it to machine language, so it can be read by Verilog $readmemh().
• Sinthesize the bitstream
• Program the FPGA

I have implemented a mechanism to run the tests against the FPGA.

To run the tests, from the verilog/test directory:

make BOARD=alhambra hwtest

It will synthesize the bitstream for each test directory under verilog/test, and then for each test inside it, it will program the FPGA, send the input (testXX.in) and check that the generated output is the same as the expected output (testXX.out).

NOTE:

• If all hardware tests (or many) randomly fail, check if there are some processes "cat /dev/ttyUSB1" hanging and kill them (or run "killall cat").

This GUI sub-project is about showing the internal state of all the components of the HRMCPU.

The GUI is made in QT, and designed using QT Creator. Internally, it relies on the Verilator model which is directly derived from the HRMCPU Verilog design.

In other words:

• the GUI is a facade on top of the verilated HRMCPU's Verilog design
  • it handles the user interaction: shows the state of registers, memories and signals
  • it handles and feed the clock signal to the design
  • it allows the user to interact with the CPU with the Inbox and Outbox FIFOs (using the buttons in the UI)
• the verilated HRMCPU model handles the heavy work (digital logic) as designed in Verilog (that is the HRMCPU)

Please note that while the HRMCPU project is about creating a synthesizable CPU, this GUI doesn't interact with the real hardware (synthesized in FPGA) but with the verilated Verilog design (which runs in software).

I made it for (my own) recreational purpose, but it could serve educational purpose, or as a base to create other GUIs for other verilator models (CPUs or anything else).

The UI layout is self explanatory: it shows the main elements of the HRMCPU and their internal states in real time.

See this video for a demo.

These are some of the features the GUI brings at the moment:

• Select and Load a program from file (machine language) into PROG memory (make tests to create all the test programs from assembler)
• Run manually (tick by tick) or in automatic mode, with adjustable clock period
• Show values of registers and signals
• Show content MEMORY ram, PROG memory, as well as INBOX and OUTBOX FIFOs (doesn't allow to directly edit values, as least not for now)
• Shows current instruction name and current ControlUnit (FSM) name I/O:
• Input field to manually push new values to INBOX
• Manual pop out of OUTBOX
• Generates a VCD file to allow for further inspection of internal states with Gtkwave for example (includes all arrays/ram content)
• Button to reset the CPU (it won't reset clock)

TODO:

• Show FSM flags
• Save/Restore internal state and time (verilated_save)
• ALU isn't represented yet

At the moment, the GUI can only be built on Linux.

$ cd gui
$ make

Make will make the Verilator model, and the QT gui and link both, to generate the hrmcpu binary in gui/.

From gui/ folder, run it with no argument:

$ ./hrmcpu

Or you can also rebuild and run in one make command:

$ make run

Tests: cd /verilog/, make test

Latest Travis CI build status: (click to get all details)

[TODO] Document this part

There's a lot of effort put into progressively crafting the Makefiles in this project in order to acomplish several features:

verilog/Makefile features:

• Multi board support (each board with different Arachne-pnr Device parameter) and it's own PCF file
• Parameterized verilog from Makefile using m4 wrapper (injected into verilog before sinthesis with yosys)
• Build (rebuild) only what is needed. Every step is a Makefile target:
  • Synthesis (yosys) verilog sources -> blif file
  • Place and Route (arachne-pnr) blif -> pnr file
  • Generate bitstream (icepack) pnr -> .bin file
• Don't rebuild bitstream if only bram initialization files have chenged (use icebram instead)
  • pnr -> pnr (with updated bram blocks)
• Upload: Flash/program FPGA
  • Only flash if bitstream has changed (keep md5 of last bitstream flashed)
• For a specific module:
  • svg: Generates a netlistsvg diagram
  • dot: Generates a GraphViz diagram
  • sim: Runs the testbench simulation of the specific module, generates variables dumps and opend gtkwave to inspect the waveform

verilog/test/Makefile:

• Discover all tests
• Runs all tests (sends input and checks ouput for every level)
• Syntesize all tests for a board (multi-board support)
• Runs all test (sends input and checks ouput for every level) against an FPGA board connected via serial port. See Hardware tests

root's Makefile features:

• Update toolchain if upstream sources have been updated
  • Incremental source update (git pull)
  • Incremental rebuild (only rebuild what's changed)
• Run testbenches (iverilog) and synthesize every level for every defined board (hw test aren't run as we can't test hardware from Travis CI... yet?)
• Called from Travis, see Continuous Integration (CI)

• Logisim Evolution, fork with FSM Addon: this version has an FSM editor, which is regat to design and test FSMs. Unfortunately, it's not based on the latest Logisim Evolution version, nor is it compatible with.
• Visual Studio Code as code editor
  • Verilog HDL 0.3.5 extension
• Opensource FPGA toolchain (installer)
  • Synthesizer: Yosys (github)
  • Place & Route (PnR): Arachne-pnr (on github)
  • Utilities and FPGA programmer: IceStorm Project
  • Verilog Simulator: Icarus Verilog
  • Waveform Viewer: Gtkwave
• Verilator: the fastest free Verilog HDL simulator
• Diagram editor: SchemeIt
• QtCreator and Qt
• Travis CI for continuous integration
  • Thanks to stevehoover

I have re-used some files from external sources:

• UART and uFIFO by Dan Gisselquist, from https://github.com/ZipCPU/wbuart32 (GPL)