Vitis Model Composer Hub - 2023.2 English

Control implementation of the model.

Description

The Vitis Model Composer Hub block controls the behavior of the Vitis Model Composer tool.

You can specify the targeted design flow for the generated output, the directory path for the output, and the desired device and design clock frequency using the following tabs.

The Hardware Selection pane helps with device or board selection.
The Code Generation pane provides options to select the output flow by selecting subsystems and specifying Code directory. Different options will be displayed depending on if the subsystem is targeting HDL, HLS, or AIE.
The Settings pane provides miscellaneous settings for the design.

Library

AI Engine/Tools; HLS/Tools; Utilities/Code Generation.

Data Type Support

Data type support is not applicable to the Vitis Model Composer Hub block.

Parameters

Figure 1. Vitis Model Composer Hub Block Parameters

The following section describes the configurable options available in each pane of the Vitis Model Composer Hub block.

Hardware Selection

Clicking the browse button (…) displays the Device Chooser dialog box. This allows you to select a part, board, or platform to which your design is targeted. Vitis Model Composer obtains board and device data from the Vivado database.

Code Generation

Select the subsystem name for which to generate code from the list on the left. Different settings will display depending on the type of code generation (HDL, HLS, or AI Engine) to be performed.

AIE Settings

AIE Compiler Options: Provides the ability to pass additional command line options (debug options, execution target options etc.) to the AIE Compiler.
AIE Simulator Options: Provides the ability to pass additional command line options to the AIE Simulator.
Create Testbench: When enabled, Vitis Model Composer generates the test vectors while generating the code.
Run cycle-approximate AIE Simulation (SystemC) after code generation: This option is only available if Create testbench is selected. When enabled, it runs the AIE simulation after code generation.
Simulation timeout (cycles): When enabled, it specifies the number of cycles for which AIE simulation is run. The default value is 50000.
Collect profiling statistics and enable 'printf' for debugging: When enabled, this option allows profiling data to be collected for analysis.
Collect trace data for Vitis analyzer and viewing internal signals: When enabled, this option collects trace data for signals within the AI Engine design to be viewed in Vitis Analyzer or the Simulation Data Inspector.
View AIE Simulation output and throughput: Opens the Simulation Data Inspector to plot the outputs of the AI Engine subsystem as simulated by the AIE Simulator.
Open Vitis Analyzer: Click to invoke the Vitis Analyzer tool. This option is only enabled after AI Engine Simulation has been ran at least once after enabling.

AIE Hardware Flow

Generate for Hardware: When enabled, clicking Generate will generate either a libadf.a or hardware validation code depending on the settings below.
Generate libadf.a: When selected, Model Composer generates graph code for the AIE subsystem and compiles it with the AIE Compiler to produce a libadf.a.
Generate Hardware Validation Code: When enabled, Vitis Model Composer generates code to be used for hardware validation. To generate the hardware image, specify the platform in the Target pane and select the Create Testbench option in the AIE Settings panel.
HW System Type: Choose between Baremetal or Linux hardware validation flow.
Target: Specify the target for hardware validation flow.
Common SW Dir: Provide the path to the folder containing the PetaLinux common images. This option is only enabled when a Linux HW System Type is selected.
Target SDK Dir: Provide the path to the folder containing the target SDK. This option is only enabled when a Linux HW System Type is selected.
Run hardware emulation after code generation: When enabled, hardware emulation will run immediately after code generation.

HDL Settings

Compilation Type

Specifies the type of compilation result that should be produced when the code generator is invoked. The default compilation type is IP catalog. When IP catalog is selected, the Settings (...) button brings up a dialog box that allows you to add a description of the IP that will be placed in the IP catalog.

Hardware Description

Specifies the HDL language to be used for compilation of the design. The possibilities are VHDL and Verilog.

VHDL library: Specifies the name of VHDL work library for code generation. The default name is xil_defaultlib.
Use STD_LOGIC type for Boolean or 1 bit wide gateways: If your design's Hardware Description Language (HDL) is VHDL, selecting this option will declare a Boolean or 1-bit port (Gateway In or Gateway Out) as a STD-LOGIC type. If this option is not selected, Vitis Model Composer will interpret Boolean or 1-bit ports as vectors.
Note: When you enable this option and try to run Generate code and Run behavioral simulation in Vivado, you might see a failure during the elaboration phase.

Synthesis strategy

Choose a Synthesis strategy from the pre-defined strategies in the drop-down menu.

Implementation strategy

Choose an Implementation strategy from the pre-defined strategies in the drop-down menu.

Create testbench

This instructs Vitis Model Composer to create an HDL test bench. Simulating the test bench in an HDL simulator compares Simulink simulation results with ones obtained from the compiled version of the design. To construct test vectors, Vitis Model Composer simulates the design in Simulink, and saves the values seen at gateways. The top HDL file for the test bench is named <name>_testbench.vhd/.v, where <name> is a name derived from the portion of the design being tested.

Note: Testbench generation is not supported for designs that have gateways (Gateway In or Gateway Out) configured as an AXI4-Lite interface.

HDL Clock Settings

Enable multiple clocks: Must be enabled when the design has multiple clocks. This indicates to the code generation engine that the clock information for the various subsystems must be obtained from the respective clock tabs. If not enabled, then the design will be treated as a single clock design.
Number of clocks: Defines the number of clocks in the design. The number of clock tabs that appear will be equivalent to the number of clocks. In each clock tab, you must select the subsystem and configure the clock settings of that subsystem.
FPGA clock period (ns): Defines the period in nanoseconds of the system clock. The value need not be an integer. The period is passed to the AMD implementation tools through a constraints file, where it is used as the global PERIOD constraint. Multicycle paths are constrained to integer multiples of this value.
Simulink system period (sec): Defines the Simulink System Period, in units of seconds. The Simulink system period is the greatest common divisor of the sample periods that appear in the model. These sample periods are set explicitly in the block dialog boxes, inherited according to Simulink's propagation rules, or implied by a hardware oversampling rate in blocks with this option. In the final case, the implied sample time is in fact faster than the observable simulation sample time for the block in Simulink. In hardware, a block having an oversampling rate greater than one processes its inputs at a faster rate than the data. For example, a sequential multiplier block with an over-sampling rate of eight implies a (Simulink) sample period that is one eighth of the multiplier block’s actual sample time in Simulink. This parameter can be modified only in a master block.
Clock pin location: Defines the pin location for the hardware clock. This information is passed to the AMD implementation tools through a constraints file. This option should not be specified if the Vitis Model Composer design is to be included as part of a larger HDL design.
Provide clock enable clear pin: This instructs Vitis Model Composer to provide a ce_clr port on the top-level clock wrapper. The ce_clr signal is used to reset the clock enable generation logic. The ability to reset clock enable generation logic allows designs to have dynamic control for specifying the beginning of data path sampling.

HDL Analysis

Block icon display

Specifies the type of information to be displayed on each block icon in the model after compilation is complete. The various display options are described below.

Default: Displays the default block icon information on each block in the model. A block’s default icon is derived from the xbsIndex library.
Figure 2. Default Block Icon
Normalized Sample Periods: Displays the normalized sample periods for all the input and output ports on each block. For example, if the Simulink System Period is set to 4 and the sample period propagated to a block port is 4, then the normalized period that is displayed for the block port is 1; and if the period propagated to the block port is 8 then the sample period displayed would be 2 (a larger number indicates a slower rate).
Figure 3. Normalized Sample Periods Icon
Sample frequencies (MHz): Displays sample frequencies for each block.
Pipeline stages: Displays the latency information from the input ports of each block. The displayed pipeline stage might not be accurate for certain high-level blocks such as the FFT, RS Encoder/Decoder, Viterbi Decoder, etc. In this case the displayed pipeline information can be used to determine whether a block has a combinational path from the input to the output. For example, the Up Sample block in the following figure shows that it has a combinational path from the input to the output port.
Figure 4. Pipeline Stages
HDL port names: Displays the HDL port name of each port on each block in the model.
Input data types: Displays the data type of each input port on each block in the model.
Output data types: Displays the data type of each output port on each block in the model.

Update the model

Update the model to display the selected Block Icon type.

Perform Analysis

Specifies whether an analysis (timing or resource) will or will not be performed on the Vitis Model Composer design when it is compiled. If None is selected, no timing analysis or resource analysis will be performed. If Post Synthesis is selected, the analysis will be performed after the design has been synthesized in the Vivado toolset. If Post Implementation is selected, the analysis will be performed after the design is implemented in the Vivado toolset.

Analysis Type

Two selections are provided: Timing or Resource. After generation is completed, a Timing Analyzer table or Resource Analyzer table is launched.

Launch

Launches the Timing Analyzer or Resource Analyzer table, depending on the selection of Analyzer type. This will only work if you already ran analysis on the Simulink model and have not changed the Simulink model since the last run.

Remote IP cache

If selected, your design will access an IP cache whenever a Vitis Model Composer compilation performs Vivado synthesis as part of the compilation. If the compilation generates an IP instance for synthesis, and the Vivado synthesis tool generates synthesis output products, the tools create an entry in the cache area. If a new customization of the IP is created which has identical properties, the tools will copy the synthesis outputs from the cache to the design’s output directory instead of synthesizing the IP instance again. Accessing the disk cache speeds up the iterative design process. IP caching is described in HDL Library.

Create interface document

When this check box is selected and the Generate button is activated for netlisting, Vitis Model Composer creates an HTM document that describes the design being netlisted. This document is placed in a documentation subfolder under the netlist folder.

Clear cache

Clicking this button clears the remote IP cache. Clearing the cache saves disk space (the IP Cache can grow large, especially if your design uses many IP modules).

HDL Hardware Flow

Generate for Hardware: When enabled, clicking Generate will generate either a .xo or hardware validation code depending on the settings below.
Generate .xo: When enabled, Vitis Model Composer generates code for the HDL subsystem and compiles it into a .xo using Vitis HLS.
Generate Hardware Validation Code: When enabled, Vitis Model Composer generates code to be used for hardware validation. To generate the hardware image, specify the platform in the Target pane and select the Create Testbench option in the HDL Settings panel. The HDL hardware flow is only supported for AMD Versal™ devices.
HW System Type: Choose between Baremetal or Linux hardware validation flow.
Target: Specify the target for hardware validation flow.
Common SW Dir: Provide the path to the folder containing the PetaLinux common images. This option is only enabled when a Linux HW System Type is selected.
Target SDK Dir: Provide the path to the folder containing the target SDK. This option is only enabled when a Linux HW System Type is selected.
Generate (BOOT.BIN/SD card image) after code generation: When enabled, a BOOT.BIN (for baremetal HW system) or SD card image (for Linux HW system) will be generated after code generation.

HLS Settings

Target: Select IP catalog to export the design to the Vivado IP catalog. After C/C++ code generation, Vitis High-Level Synthesis (HLS) is invoked to synthesize the C code and create a project that can be exported as an IP to the Vivado IP catalog. Select HLS C++ code to compile the design model into C++ code.
FPGA clock frequency: Specifies the clock frequency in MHz for the targeted device. This frequency is passed to the downstream tool flow.
Throughput factor: Specifies the number of samples processed per clock to increase the throughput. A larger factor increases hardware resource usage. The throughput factor must be between 1 and 16.
Create testbench and run (C simulation/RTL cosimulation): If selected, Vitis Model Composer runs simulation and generates test vectors while generating code.
Testbench stack size (MBytes): This parameter prompts you to enter a larger stack size. When Create and run testbench is enabled, the Testbench stack size option specifies the size of the testbench stack frame during C simulation (CSIM). Occasionally, the default stack frame size of 10 MB allocate for execution of the testbench may be insufficient to run the test, due to large arrays allocated on the stack and/or deep nesting of subsystems. Typically when this happens, the test would fail with a segmentation fault and an associated error message. In such a case you can increase the size of the stack frame and rerun the test.

HLS Hardware Flow

Important: For a design built from blocks in the HLS library, hardware flow is not supported. An exception to this is the HLS Kernel block. A design with one or more HLS Kernel blocks along with AI Engine blocks is supported for hardware flow.

Generate for Hardware: When enabled, clicking Generate will generate either a .xo or hardware validation code depending on the settings below.
Generate .xo: When enabled, Vitis Model Composer generates code for the HLS Kernel and compiles it into a .xo using Vitis HLS.
Generate Hardware Validation Code: When enabled, Vitis Model Composer generates code to be used for hardware validation. To generate the hardware image, specify the platform in the Target pane and select the Create Testbench option in the HLS Settings panel.
HW System Type: Choose between Baremetal or Linux hardware validation flow.
Target: Specify the target for hardware validation flow.
Common SW Dir: Provide the path to the folder containing the PetaLinux common images. This option is only enabled when a Linux HW System Type is selected.
Target SDK Dir: Provide the path to the folder containing the target SDK. This option is only enabled when a Linux HW System Type is selected.
Generate (BOOT.BIN/SD card image) after code generation: When enabled, a BOOT.BIN (for baremetal HW system) or SD card image (for Linux HW system) will be generated after code generation.

Code Generation

Select a subsystem containing blocks from the AI Engine, HDL, or HLS blocksets and specify the corresponding Code Directory. The Code Directory can be specified by entering the complete directory path or using the Browse button to provide a path.

Settings

Specify whether the Model Composer Hub block should treat your model as a legacy System Generator design.