A VHDL compiler based on attribute grammar methodology

Authors:
R. Farrow;A. G. Stanculescu
Affiliations:
Declarative Systems, Inc.;Vantage Analysis Systems, Inc.
Venue:
PLDI '89 Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN 1989 Conference on Programming language design and implementation
Year:
1989

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Abstract

This paper presents aspects of a compiler for a new hardware description language (VHDL) written using attribute grammar techniques. VHDL is introduced, along with the new compiler challenges brought by a language that extends an Ada subset for the purpose of describing hardware. Attribute grammar programming solutions are presented for some of the language challenges.The organization of the compiler and of the target virtual machine represented by the simulation kernel are discussed, and performance and code-size figures are presented.The paper concludes that attribute grammars can be used for large commercial compilers with excellent results in terms of rapid development time and enhanced maintainability, and without paying any substantial penalty in terms of either the complexity of the language that can be handled or the resulting compilation speed.