Dataflow Viewer - 2023.1 English

Vitis High-Level Synthesis User Guide (UG1399)

Document ID
UG1399
Release Date
2023-07-17
Version
2023.1 English
The DATAFLOW optimization is a dynamic optimization which can only be fully understood after the RTL co-simulation is complete. Due to this fact, the Dataflow viewer lets you see the dataflow structure inferred by the tool, inspect the channels (FIFO/PIPO), and examine the effect of channel depth on performance. Performance data is back-annotated to the Dataflow viewer from the co-simulation results.
Important: You can open the Dataflow viewer without running RTL co-simulation, but your view will not contain important performance information such as read/write block times, co-sim depth, and stall times.

You must apply the DATAFLOW pragma or directive to your design for the Dataflow viewer to be populated. You can apply dataflow to the top-level function, or specify regions of a function, or loops. The Dataflow viewer displays a representation of the dataflow graph structure, showing the different processes and the underlying producer-consumer connections.

In the Module Hierarchy view, the icon beside the function indicates that a Dataflow viewer report is available. When you see this icon, you can right-click the function and use the Open Dataflow Viewer command. The Dataflow diagram for the simple_fifos example design is shown below.

Tip: The diagram below is generated from the default ap_memory interface of the Vivado IP flow. The use of an m_axi interface would change the look of the flow diagram to include s_axilite register reads.
Figure 1. Dataflow Viewer

Features of the Dataflow viewer include the following:

  • Source Code browser.
  • Automatic cross-probing from process/channel to source code.
  • Filtering of ports and channel types.
  • Process and Channel table details the characteristics of the design:
    • Channel Profiling (FIFO sizes etc), enabled from Solution Settings dialog box, or from the C/RTL Co-simulation dialog box
    • Process Read Blocking/Write Blocking/Stalling Time reported after RTL co-simulation.
      Important: You must use cosim_design -enable_dataflow_profiling to capture data for the Dataflow viewer when using Tcl commands, and your test bench must run at least two iterations of the top-level function.
    • Process Latency and II displayed.
    • Channel type and widths are displayed in the Channel table.
    • Automatic cross-probing from Process and Channel table to the Graph and Source browser.
    • Hover over channel or process to display tooltips with design information.

The Dataflow viewer can help with performance debugging your designs. When your design deadlocks during RTL co-simulation, the GUI will open the Dataflow viewer and highlight the channels and processes involved in the deadlock so you can determine if the cause is insufficient FIFO depth, for instance.

When your design does not perform as expected, the Process and Channels table can help you understand why. A process can stall waiting to read input, or can stall because it cannot write output. The channel table provides you with stalling percentages, as well as identifying if the process is "read blocked" or "write blocked."