Multi-Access Pointers on the Interface - 2023.1 English

Designs that use pointers in the argument list of the top-level function (on the interface) need special consideration when multiple accesses are performed using pointers. Multiple accesses occur when a pointer is read from or written to multiple times in the same function.

Using pointers which are accessed multiple times can introduce unexpected behavior after synthesis. In the following "bad" example pointer d_i is read four times and pointer d_o is written to twice: the pointers perform multiple accesses.

#include "pointer_stream_bad.h"

void pointer_stream_bad ( dout_t *d_o,  din_t *d_i) {
 din_t acc = 0;

 acc += *d_i;
 acc += *d_i;
 *d_o = acc;
 acc += *d_i;
 acc += *d_i;
 *d_o = acc;
}

After synthesis this code will result in an RTL design which reads the input port once and writes to the output port once. As with any standard C/C++ compiler, Vitis HLS will optimize away the redundant pointer accesses. The test bench to verify this design is shown in the following code example:

#include "pointer_stream_bad.h"
int main () {
din_t d_i;
dout_t d_o;
int retval=0;
FILE *fp;

// Open a file for the output results
fp=fopen(result.dat,w);

// Call the function to operate on the data
for (d_i=0;d_i<4;d_i++) {
   pointer_stream_bad(&d_o,&d_i);
   fprintf(fp, %d %d\n, d_i, d_o);
}
fclose(fp);

// Compare the results file with the golden results
retval = system(diff --brief -w result.dat result.golden.dat);
if (retval != 0) {
   printf(Test failed !!!\n);
   retval=1;
} else {
   printf(Test passed !\n);
}

// Return 0 if the test
return retval;
}

To implement the code as written, with the “anticipated” 4 reads on d_i and 2 writes to the d_o, the pointers must be specified as volatile as shown in the "pointer_stream_better" example.

#include "pointer_stream_better.h"

void pointer_stream_better ( volatile dout_t *d_o,  volatile din_t *d_i) {
 din_t acc = 0;

 acc += *d_i;
 acc += *d_i;
 *d_o = acc;
 acc += *d_i;
 acc += *d_i;
 *d_o = acc;
}

To support multi-access pointers on the interface you should take the following steps:

• Validate the C/C++ before synthesis to confirm the intent and that the C/C++ model is correct.
• The pointer argument must have the number of accesses on the port interface specified when verifying the RTL using co-simulation within Vitis HLS.