What blocks make up a System on Chip, how do they relate, and why does integration deliver such dramatic benefits over traditional board-level designs?
read moreOther articles
Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace
A summary of high and low emotional intelligence (EQ) traits in leaders and employees, and how EQ shapes team dynamics and decision making.
read moreMakerWorld Parametric Models with OpenSCAD
How to create customizable parametric models on MakerWorld using OpenSCAD scripts.
read moreOpenSCAD on Apple Silicon
Installing OpenSCAD on Apple Silicon Macs using Homebrew.
read moreSoC Article 01: From Room to Silicon — The Story of the Computer System
How computing evolved from room-filling mainframes to a sliver of silicon in your pocket — and why that history shapes modern SoC design.
read moreRequirements Writing
Good requirements engineering is fundamental to delivering products that meet customer needs within cost and schedule. A well-formed requirement identifies …
read moreFSM Diagrams in Pelican and Claude Code
Finite state machines turn up everywhere: protocol implementations, hardware controllers, UI flows, parsers. Drawing them well is useful but tedious …
read moreVerilog Lint Skill for Claude Code
I've been using Claude Code for RTL generation lately, and the missing piece was a tight feedback loop between code …
read moreWaveDrom Timing Diagrams in Pelican with Claude Code
Adaptive Filter Theory Notes 1
Notes From Reading Adaptive Signal Theory (5th Ed) by Simon Haykin
Three Basic Kinds Of Estimation
- Filtering - Extraction of Current …
"Matlab: floating point checking equality"
As previously decribed floating point arithmetic is not associative. Which means it is very easy for floating point models not …
read more"Matlab: linear progressions"
"Matlab: functions inputs parsed based on outputs"
It is quite common to detect how many input arguments have been passed to a function, using
read morenargin(N arguments …"SystemVerilog: RTL Types"
read moreregandwirewere the original synthesisable types. Wires are constantly assigned and regs are evaluated at particular points, the …"Verilog: define if not defined"
To set a default define option while allowing it to be overridden from the command line.
read more`ifndef mode_sel `define mode_sel …"Verilog: shm waveforms"
The best practice is to use a tcl file:
shm.tcl
read moredatabase -open waves -shm probe -create your_top_level -depth all …"Verilog Timeformat"
Time can be displayed during simulation using
%t.$display("%t", $realtime);Timeformat is used to control the way (
read more%t) this …"SystemVerilog: Constrained Random"
A minimal example of constrained random to constraining a 4 bit value to 0 to 11 when randomised.
read moremodule tb …"Verilog: Thermometer Code"
Efficiently create a [thermometer code][wiki] in verilog:
read morelocalparam M = 32; function [M-1:0] therm_code; input [$clog2(M):0 …"Verilog: Calculate primes"
"Submit to SGE as if working locally"
Setting an alias in you .tcshrc
alias qrun 'qrsh -V -noshell -cwd !*'or bash
read morealias qrun='qrsh -V -noshell -cwd …"Simulink: Scroll wheel erratic behaviour"
On Mac OS X matlab behaves quite oddly with the track pad zooming in and out very quickly and erratically …
read more"Matlab editor no tabs"
Matlab always use to open text files in tabs in the same editor window. When switching to 2014a documents started …
read more"Simulink: Globally set sample time"
To set each constant in a model to sample time -1:
read moreblks = find_system(dut, 'BlockType', 'Constant'); for i = 1:length …"Simulink: list programmable block properties"
Select a block ie gain in Simulink then in Matlab type:
get(gcbh)This shows the list of properties which …
read more"Matlab: Find all gain blocks"
find_system('BlockType', 'Gain')This will list all gain blocks in currently loaded models. to limit to a particulat model:
read morefind_system …"Floating Point Arithmetic is not Associative"
"Verilog: Timeout"
To wait for a maximum of
10nsfor positive edge on clk then carry on with simulation.read morefork : wait_or_timeout begin …"Matlab Remove Elements from Array"
"Matlab: Formatting Strings"
"Matlab: Grid"
To add X and Y grids to plots :
grid on;
To add Y only grid:
read moreset(gca,'XGrid','off','YGrid …"Matlab: Line Breaks in Strings"
Wrap strings with
sprintfto allow the\nto be escaped correctly.read more>> disp('hello\nworld') hello\nworld >> disp(sprintf('hello …"Matlab: Listing field name values of a struct"
"Matlab toolboxes with absolute path setup"
When a script or function is called with
read morerun(./relative/path/script)the working directory is changed to the./relative …"Matlab: Array content check"
Checking if an Array contains a number:
input = [1,2,3,4]; check = 4; any(input==4)Check if a …
read more"Matlab: Split Odd & Even Array Elements"
Using Matlab to splitting data into odd and even samples.
A for loop approach:
read moredata_odd = []; data_even = []; for i = 1:length …"Verilog importing envvar"
Based on a Stackoverflow answer, to import environment variables into Verilog you can use:
read moreimport "DPI-C" function string getenv(input …"Matlab: leading 0's"
For adding leading zeros to a number the following can be used for 4 decimal places with integer input:
read moredat …"Matlab Wrapper Scripts"
To wrap a function with variable input arguments and pass them all on to the wrapped function. Based on a …
read more"Matlab sort_by"
In ruby we can perform schwartzian transforms easily with the sort_by method. This allows sorting enumerators by any property.
For …
read more"Beyond the LSB"
If we truncate a number, that is to throw away the LSBs (least significant bits) we loose resolution.
A 4 …
read more"Matlab Function Outputs"
Handling functions with extraneous leading outputs. For example:
read morefunction [a,b] = dummy_function a = 10; b = 20; endfunction [a, b] = dummy_function …"Matlab Shuffle Array"
To shuffle a:
a(randperm(length(a)))Example:
read morea = [10 2 5 20]; a = a(randperm(length(a))) a = 5 …"OO Magic Bullet?"
I do not think that there are any magic bullets, best practises can minimise risk but you have to fully …
read more"$display without a line return"
In Verilog to output to stdout without a line return use
$write();Equivalent statements :
read more$write("\n"); $display("");"Object-Oriented Matlab"
Mathworks Article on Object-Oriented programming for Matlab.
A quick example of the syntax:
read moreclassdef sads properties Name SampleRate end properties …"Matlab: legend colours"
When plotting several lines in Matlab, I have become aware of how hard it was to see the colours in …
read more"Matlab benchmarking"
In the following example we test the allocation speed of different types:
read moresamples_to_avg = 10000; for i=1:samples_to_avg tic; t …"Matlab remove values from array"
"flip-flop"
A flip-flop (D-Type) is essentially 2 latches in series with the enable to one inverted. This stops the flip-flop from …
read more"Matlab repeat a matrix n times"
repmat(matrix, [repeat_y, repeat_x])
Horizontal
read morerepmat([1 2 3],[1,4]) ans = 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 …"Matlab setting Simulink simulation stop time"
Running the Simulink model model.mdl from matlab for a specified time:
sim('model', stoptime)Where stoptime is a number …
read more"Name Spacing in Matlab"
A typical work flow in Matlab involves a folder filled with scripts and functions. Over time this folder grows until …
read more"Navigate Verilog with VIM"
Using
gfIn your vimrc
read more" gf goto_file, automatically add search for these file extensions :set suffixesadd+=.v :set suffixesadd+=.sv …"Testing Matlab Arrays for Equality."
Testing a matlab array for equality can be doen a few different was some have surprising side effects if your …
read more"Device Ownership Password"
While using a pool laptop from work and trying to connect to my home wifi I am prompted for my …
read more"iPad 3 Tethering"
Three now have tethering available for the iPad 3, which can be read in the comments by moderators on the …
read moreTasks Using Absolute Delays
As previously mentioned SystemVerilog introduced abolute delays in the form of
read more#1s;,#1ms,#1us,#1ns. Using these as values passed …"Matlab Scripting Axes Properties"
Matlab figure properties which can be set through the properties editor can also be set by scripts. My main stumbling …
read more