libtrellis Overview

libtrellis is a C++ library containing utilities to manipulate ECP5 bitstreams, and the databases that correspond tile bits to functionality (routing and configuration). Although libtrellis can be used as a standard shared library, its primary use in Project Trellis is as a Python module (called pytrellis), imported by the fuzzing and utility scripts. The C++ classes are bound to Python using Boost::Python.

Bitstream

This class provides functionality to read and write Lattice bitstream files, parse their commands, and convert them into a chip’s configuration memory (in terms of frames and bits).

To read a bitstream, use read_bit to create a Bitstream object, then call deserialise_chip on that to create a Chip.

Chip

This represents a configured FPGA, in terms of its configuration memory (CRAM), tiles and metadata. You can either use deserialise_chip on a bitstream to construct a Chip from an existing bitstream, or construct a Chip by device name or IDCODE.

The ChipInfo structure contains information for a particular FPGA device.

CRAM

This class stores the entire configuration data of the FPGA, as a 2D array (frames and bits). Although the array can be accessed directly, many cases will use CRAMView instead. CRAMView provides a read/write view of a window of the CRAM. This is usually used to represent the configuration memory of a single tile, and takes frame and bit offsets and lengths.

Subtracting two CRAMView s, if they are the same size, will produce a CRAMDelta, a list of the changes between the two memories. This is useful for fuzzing or comparing bitstreams.

Tile

This represents a tile of the FPGA. It includes a CRAMView to represent the configuration memory of the tile.

TileConfig

This represents the actual configuration of a tile, in terms of arcs (programmable connections), config words (such as LUT initialisation) and config enums (such as IO type). It is the result of decoding the tile CRAM content using the bit database, and can be converted to a FASM-like format.

The contents of TileConfig are ConfigArc for connections, ConfigWord for non-routing configuration words (which also includes single config bits), ConfigEnum for enum configurations with multiple textual values, and ConfigUnknown for unknown bits not found in the database, which are simply stored as a frame, bit reference.

The contents of a tile’s configuration RAM can be converted to and from a TileConfig by using the tile_cram_to_config and config_to_tile_cram methods on the TileBitDatabase instance for the tile.

TileBitDatabase

There will always be only one TileBitDatabase for each tile type, which is enforced by requiring calling the function get_tile_bitdata (in Database.cpp) to obtain a shared_ptr to the TileBitDatabase.

The TileBitDatabase stored the function of all bits in the tile, in terms of the following constructs:

  • Muxes (MuxBits) specify a list of arcs that can drive a given node. Each arc (ArcData) contains specifies source, sink and the list of bits that enable it as a BitGroup.
  • Config words (WordSettingBits) specify non-routing configuration settings that are arranged as one or more bits. Each config bit has an associated list of bits that enable it. This would be used both for single-bit settings and configuration such as LUT initialisation and PLL dividers.
  • Config enums (EnumSettingBits) specify non-routing configuration settings that have a set of possible textual values, used for either modes/types (i.e. IO type) or occasionally “special” muxes not part of general routing. These are specified as a map between possible values and the bits that enable those values.

TileBitDatabase instances can be modified during runtime, in a thread-safe way, to enable parallel fuzzing. They can be saved back to disk using the save method.

They can also be used to convert between tile CRAM data and higher level tile config, as described above.

RoutingGraph

RoutingGraph and related structures are designed to store a complete routing graph for the Chip. RoutingWire represents wires, RoutingArc represents arcs between wires and RoutingBel represents a Bel (logic element). To reduce memory usage, ident_t, an index into a string store, is used instead of using strings directly. Use RoutingGraph.ident to convert from string to ident_t, and RoutingGraph.to_str to convert to a string.

DedupChipdb

This is an experimental part of libtrellis to “deduplicate” the repetition in the routing graph, by converting it to relative coordinates and then storing identical tile locations only once. The data produced is intended to be exported to a database for a place and route tool using the Python API.

ChipConfig

ChipConfig contains the high-level configuration for the entire chip, including all tiles and metadata. It can be directly converted to or from a high-level configuration text file. For more information see Text Config Documentation.