almost 3 years ago

This is a summary of the Google Summer of Code project MyHDL: Fixed-point Compiler.


The entire code can be found in the mep-111 branch of my repository. It has been contained in a single pull request #228 and not yet merged.

The main repository of MyHDL has created a gsoc branch for GSoC projects this year. However, none of the code has been merged in until now.

Summary of Goals

The goals have been described simply in my proposal:

When the project finishes, MyHDL should have a complete implementation of fixbv and its compiler backend with complete documentation, include tutorials and reference.

It contains 3 parts: front-end, back-end, and documentation. To simply speaking, it is far from saying that the project has been "completed". Although the front-end has been finished, the back-end is still not working, and although I have written many blog posts about my work and the implementation of MyHDL, the documentation of fixbv interface at this time temporarily is still MEP-111.

Here is a detailed description of each part.


Before my project, cfelton has implemented a simple fixbv front-end. It only supports some simple functions. So I made the following improvements:

  1. Added support for Python 3.x.
  2. Added support for point alignment.
  3. Added support for round modes and overflow modes.
  4. Added more tests for fixbv front-end in

These improvements made an almost complete change on the previous fixbv implementation, and also affected some other critical code, such as, etc.

It has only some minor issues left now. Because those issues do not affect the core function of fixbv, the implementation of these issues has been put in a lower priority after discussion with mentors.

  1. There are still some minor issues marked as @todo after cleaned up cfelton's code.
  2. Implementation of fxsum which is described in a previous post. Since it only affects intermediate results, it seems not necessary.
  3. Interoperability with intbv. Since intbv could be treated as a fixbv without a fractional part, it is possible to operate between intbv and fixbv. It has been given a low priority since it is not defined in MEP-111 and not so emergent at this time.


At this time, only the tests of Verilog conversion has been implemented. There are a few patches on the back-end code but it is still not working even with those simple test cases.

There are still something that needs to go:

  1. Patch AST node visitors for conversion.
  2. Patch other parts of the back-end code in order to implement all the functions of fixbv.
  3. Make bigger test cases to better check the implementation, such as CORDIC.


Until now, the main documentation of fixbv is MEP-111 of MyHDL project, which is written by cfelton.

I have written some blog posts of some features and issues of fixbv. However, this part has not been merged into a larger documentation. It will be helpful in the future.

Reasons of Incomplete

  1. The plan is too ambitious. I thought it was just a new type on this existing platform. However, I should also review many other parts of work according to different issues that may take.
  2. Too much hanging around in the ad hoc issues. While implementing the front-end, there were so many small issues and I have to take time to fix them.
  3. Not enough work time. GSoC needs 40 hours per week to work for the project. However, I am in a university located in Japan, and I have to deal with final exams in June and August for spring and summer quarter respectively. It took me a lot of time. I have suggested future GSoC to consider students' time in different regions.

Future Plan

  1. Fully implement the back-end with tests.
  2. Merge the documentation to some places like The MyHDL Manual.
  3. Implement interoperability between intbv and fixbv.

I have deeply involved in the society of MyHDL. I will contribute to it in the future.

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