Introduction covered the need for an interface, how to instantiate and connect the interface with a design. There are two ways in which the design can be written:
- By using an existing interface name to specifically use only that interface
- By using a generic interface handle to which any interface can be passed
Obviously, the generic method works best when interface definitions are updated to newer versions with a different name, and needs to support older designs that use it.
Example using a named bundle
In this case, the design references the actual interface name for access to its signals. The example below shows that both design modules myDesign and yourDesign declares a port in the port list called if0 of type myInterface to access signals.
module myDesign ( myInterface if0,
input logic clk);
always @ (posedge clk)
if (if0.ack)
if0.gnt <= 1;
...
endmodule
module yourDesign ( myInterface if0,
input logic clk);
...
endmodule
module tb;
logic clk = 0;
myInterface _if;
myDesign md0 (_if, clk);
yourDesign yd0 (_if, clk);
endmodule
Example using a generic bundle
In this case, the design uses the interface keyword as a placeholder for the actual interface type. The example below shows that both the design modules myDesign and yourDesign uses the placeholder handle to reference signals. The actual interface is then passed during design module instantiation. This generic interface reference can only be declared using ANSI style of port declaration syntax and is illegal otherwise.
module myDesign ( interface a,
input logic clk);
always @ (posedge clk)
if (if0.ack)
if0.gnt <= 1;
...
endmodule
module yourDesign ( interface b,
input logic clk);
...
endmodule
module tb;
logic clk = 0;
myInterface _if;
myDesign md0 ( .*, .a(_if)); // use partial implicit port connections
yourDesign yd0 ( .*, .b(_if));
endmodule
