FIFO Interfaces - 2022.2 English

Vitis HLS allows array arguments to be implemented as FIFO ports in the RTL. If a FIFO ports is to be used, you must ensure that the accesses to and from the array are sequential.

The following code example shows a case in which the tool cannot determine whether the accesses are sequential. In this example, both d_i and d_o are specified to be implemented with a FIFO interface during synthesis. In this case, you must ensure the access is sequential or you will be introducing errors into your system.

#include "array_FIFO.h"

void array_FIFO (dout_t d_o[4], din_t d_i[4], didx_t idx[4]) {
 int i;
#pragma HLS INTERFACE mode=ap_fifo port=d_i
#pragma HLS INTERFACE mode=ap_fifo port=d_o
 For_Loop: for (i=0;i<4;i++) {
 d_o[i] = d_i[idx[i]];
 }
}

In this case, the values of variable idx would determine whether or not a FIFO interface can be successfully created for argument d_i[].

• If the values of the elements of idx are sequential, then a FIFO interface could be created
• If random values are used for idx, a FIFO interface fails in Co-simulation when implemented in RTL, and may also fail during runtime

@W [XFORM-124] Array 'd_i': may have improper streaming access(es).

In addition, the idx array is never read, because its elements are assumed to have sequential values starting from 0, due to the presence of the ap_fifo INTERFACE pragma.

The following general rules apply to arrays that are implemented with a FIFO interface:

• The array must be only read or written in the loop or function. This can be transformed into a point-to-point connection that matches the characteristics of FIFO links.
• The array reads must be in the same order as the array writes. Because random access is not supported for FIFO channels, the array must be used in the program following first in, first out semantics.

struct A {
  short foo;
  int bar;
};
  
void dut(A in[N], A out[out], bool flag) {
  #pragma HLS interface ap_fifo port=in,out
  for (unsigned i=0; i<N; i++) {
    A tmp = in[i];
    if (flag)
      tmp.bar += 5;
    out[i] = tmp;
  }
}
 
Bad example 1:
void dut(A in[N], A out[out], bool flag) {
  #pragma HLS interface ap_fifo port=in,out
  for (unsigned i=0; i<N; i++) {
    out[i] = in[i];
    if (flag)
      out[i].bar += 5;
  }
}
 
Bad example 2:
void dut(A in[N], A out[out], bool flag) {
  #pragma HLS interface ap_fifo port=in,out
  for (unsigned i=0; i<N; i++) {
    out[i].foo = in[i].foo;
    if (flag)
      out[i].bar = in[i].bar + 5;
    else
      out[i].bar = in[i].bar;
  }
}