AXI4-Stream Interfaces - 2023.2 English

Vitis High-Level Synthesis User Guide (UG1399)

Document ID
UG1399
Release Date
2023-12-18
Version
2023.2 English
Important: hls::axis (and ap_axiu/ap_axis) cannot be used on internal functions or variables as the AXI4-Stream protocol is only supported on the interfaces of top-level functions. For internal functions or variables you must use hls::stream objects as described in HLS Stream Library.

An AXI4-Stream interface can be applied to any input argument and any array or pointer output argument. Because an AXI4-Stream interface transfers data in a sequential streaming manner, it cannot be used with arguments that are both read and written. In terms of data layout, the data type of the AXI4-Stream is aligned to the next byte. For example, if the size of the data type is 12 bits, it will be extended to 16 bits. Depending on whether a signed/unsigned interface is selected, the extended bits are either sign-extended or zero-extended.

If the stream data type is an user-defined struct, the default procedure is to keep the struct aggregated and align the struct to the size of the largest data element to the nearest byte. The only exception to this rule is if the struct contains a hls::stream object. In this special case, the struct will be disaggregated and an axi stream will be created for each member element of the struct.

Tip: The maximum supported port width is 4096 bits, even for aggregated structs or reshaped arrays.

The following code examples show how the packed alignment depends on your struct type. If the struct contains only char type, as shown in the following example, then it will be packed with alignment of one byte. Total size of the struct will be two bytes:

struct A {
  char foo;
  char bar;
};

However, if the struct has elements with different data types, as shown below, then it will be packed and aligned to the size of the largest data element, or four bytes in this example. Element bar will be padded with three bytes resulting in a total size of eight bytes for the struct:

struct A {
  int foo;
  char bar;
};
Important: Structs contained in AXI4-Stream interfaces (axis) are aggregated by default, and the stream itself cannot be disaggregated. If separate streams for member elements of the struct are desired then this must be manually coded as separate elements, resulting in a separate axis interface for each element. Refer to Vitis-HLS-Introductory-Examples/Interface/Aggregation_Disaggregation/disaggregation_of_axis_port on GitHub for an example.