VLSI Design

Procedure and Functions

( Unit-II )

Subject In Charge

Narendra L Lokhande
Department of Electronics and Telecommunication
R C Patel Institute of Technology, Shirpur,
Dist: Dhule, Maharashtra

Email: [email protected]

Prepared By: Narendra L Lokhande 1

 Subprograms
• Like other programming languages, VHDL provides
subprogram facilities in the form of procedures and
functions.

• The features of subprograms are such that they can be

written once and called many times.

• They can be recursive and thus can be repeated from

within the scope.

• The major difference between procedure and function

is that the function has a return statement but a
procedure does not have a return statement.
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 Types of Subprograms
• VHDL provides two sub-program constructs:

 Procedure: generalization for a set of statements.

 Function: generalization for an expression.

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 Declarations of procedures and function
Both procedure and functions can be
declared in the declarative parts of:

 Entity
 Architecture
 Process
 Package interface
 Other procedure and functions

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 Formal and actual parameters
• The variables, constants and signals specified in the
subprogram declaration are called formal parameters.

• The variables, constants and signals specified in the

subprogram call are called actual parameters.

• Formal parameters act as placeholders for actual

parameters.

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 Concurrent and sequential programs
• Both functions and procedures can be either concurrent or
sequential

• Concurrent functions or procedures exists outside process

statement or another subprogram

• Sequential functions or procedures exist only in process

statement or another subprogram statement.

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 Procedure
• A procedure is a subprogram that defined as
algorithm for computing values or exhibiting
behavior.

• Procedure call is a statement, which encapsulates

a collection of sequential statements into a single
statement.

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 Procedure cont..
• Procedure declarations can be nested
– Allows for recursive calls

• Procedures can call other procedures

• Procedure must be declared before use. It can be declared

in any place where declarations are allowed, however the
place of declaration determines the scope

• Cannot be used on right side of signal assignment

expression since doesn’t return value

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 Syntax for Procedure
procedure identifier [ parameter_interface
_list ] is
subprogram_declarative_part
begin

sequential_statement

End identifier ;

parameter_interface _list <=

( [ constant | variable | Prepared
signal ] identifier
By: Narendra L Lokhande { , . . . }) 9
 Example_1

PROCEDURE p_1(variable x, y: inout real);

PROCEDURE p_2 (constant in1: in integer; variable o1: out integer);

PROCEDURE p_3 (signal sig: inout std_logic);

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 Example_2

procedure transcoder_1 (variable value: inout bit_vector (0 to 7)) is

begin
case value is

when “00000000” => value : = “01010101”;

when “01010101” => value : = “00000000”;
when others => value : = “11111111”;

End case;
End transcoder_1;
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 VHDL Full Adder Using Procedure
library IEEE; Begin
Use IEEE.STD_LOGIC_1164.ALL; process (x, y, cin)
variable sum1, c1, c2, tem1,
Entity full_add is
port (x, y, cin : in std_logic; tem2 : std_logic;
sum, cout : out std_logic); Begin
End full_add;
Haddr (sum1, c1, y, cin);
Architecture two_halfs of full_add is Haddr (tem1, c2, sum1, x);
procedure Haddr(sh, ch : out std_logic; tem2 := c1 OR c2;
ah, bh : in std_logic) is
sum <= tem1;
Begin cout <= tem2;

sh := ah xor bh; End process;

ch := ah and bh;

End Haddr; End two_halfs;

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 VHDL N-Bit Ripple Carry Adder Using Procedure
Library IEEE;
Use IEEE.STD_LOGIC_1164.ALL; Begin
process (x, y, cin)
Entity adder_ripple is variable c1, c2, tem1, tem2 : std_logic;
Generic (N : integer := 3); variable cint : std_logic_vector (N+1 downto 0);
port (x, y : in std_logic_vector (N downto 0); variable sum1 : std_logic_vector (N downto 0);
cin : in std_logic;
sum : out std_logic_vector (N downto 0); Begin
cout : out std_logic); cint(0) := cin;
End adder_ripple;
for i in 0 to N loop
Architecture adder of adder_ripple is
Faddr (sum1(i), cint(i+1), x(i), y(i), cint(i));
procedure Faddr(sf, cof : out std_logic;
af, bf, cinf : in std_logic) is End loop;

Begin sum <= sum1;

cout <= cint(N+1);
sf := af XOR bf XOR cinf;
cof := (af AND bf) OR (af AND cinf) OR (bf AND End process;
cinf);
End adder;
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End Faddr;
 Functions

• A function call is the subprogram of the form that

returns a value.

• It can also be defined as a subprogram that either

defines a algorithm for computing values or describes a
behavior.

• The important feature of the function is that they are

used as expressions that return values of specified
type. This is the main difference from procedures

• The results return by a function can be either scalar or

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 Example
function func_1 (A, B, X : real) return real;
function “*” (a, b: integer_new) return integer_new;
function add_signals (signal in1, in2: real) return real;

• The first function name above is called func_1, it has three

parameters A,B and X, all of the REAL types and returns a value also
of REAL type.

• The second function defines a new algorithm for executing

multiplication. Note that the operator is enclosed in double quotes
and plays the role of the function name.

• The third is based on the signals as input parameters, which is

denoted by the reserved word signal preceding the parameters.
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 Example-2
function transcod_1(value: in std_logic_vector (0 to 7)) return

std_logic_vector is
Begin
case value is

when “00000000” => return “01010101”;

when “01010101” => return “00000000”;
when others => return “11111111”;

End case;

End transcod_1;

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 VHDL Function to Find the Greater of Two Signed Numbers
library IEEE; Begin
use IEEE.STD_LOGIC_1164.ALL;
process (x, y)
use IEEE.NUMERIC_STD.ALL;
Begin
Entity greater_2 is z <= grt (x, y);
port (x, y : in signed (3 downto 0);
z : out signed (3 downto 0));
End process;
End greater_2;

Architecture greater of greater_2 is End greater;

function grt (a, b : signed (3 downto 0)) return signed is
variable temp : signed (3 downto 0);
Begin
if (a >= b) then
temp := a;
else
temp := b;
end if;
return temp;
End grt;
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 Difference Between Function and Procedure

1) Returns only one argument. 1) It can return more than one

argument
2) Lists parameters are constant 2) List parameters can be in / out/
by default but can be overridden inout. It can be only in for
by using signal. constant and can be out/inout
for variable.
3) function by itself is not
3) procedure is a complete
complete statement.
statement
4) function has two parts: function 4) procedure has two parts:
declaration and function call. procedure declaration and
procedure call.

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