Chisel Data Types

Chisel datatypes are used to specify the type of values held in state elements or flowing on wires. While hardware designs ultimately operate on vectors of binary digits, other more abstract representations for values allow clearer specifications and help the tools generate more optimal circuits. In Chisel, a raw collection of bits is represented by the Bits type. Signed and unsigned integers are considered subsets of fixed-point numbers and are represented by types SInt and UInt respectively. Signed fixed-point numbers, including integers, are represented using two's-complement format. Boolean values are represented as type Bool. Note that these types are distinct from Scala's builtin types such as Int or Boolean.

Additionally, Chisel defines Bundles for making collections of values with named fields (similar to structs in other languages), and Vecs for indexable collections of values.

Bundles and Vecs will be covered in the next section.

Constant or literal values are expressed using Scala integers or strings passed to constructors for the types:

1.U       // decimal 1-bit lit from Scala Int.
"ha".U    // hexadecimal 4-bit lit from string.
"o12".U   // octal 4-bit lit from string.
"b1010".U // binary 4-bit lit from string.

5.S    // signed decimal 4-bit lit from Scala Int.
-8.S   // negative decimal 4-bit lit from Scala Int.
5.U    // unsigned decimal 3-bit lit from Scala Int.

8.U(4.W) // 4-bit unsigned decimal, value 8.
-152.S(32.W) // 32-bit signed decimal, value -152.

true.B // Bool lits from Scala lits.
false.B

Underscores can be used as separators in long string literals to aid readability, but are ignored when creating the value, e.g.:

"h_dead_beef".U   // 32-bit lit of type UInt

By default, the Chisel compiler will size each constant to the minimum number of bits required to hold the constant, including a sign bit for signed types. Bit widths can also be specified explicitly on literals, as shown below. Note that (.W is used to cast a Scala Int to a Chisel width)

"ha".asUInt(8.W)     // hexadecimal 8-bit lit of type UInt
"o12".asUInt(6.W)    // octal 6-bit lit of type UInt
"b1010".asUInt(12.W) // binary 12-bit lit of type UInt

5.asSInt(7.W) // signed decimal 7-bit lit of type SInt
5.asUInt(8.W) // unsigned decimal 8-bit lit of type UInt

For literals of type UInt, the value is zero-extended to the desired bit width. For literals of type SInt, the value is sign-extended to fill the desired bit width. If the given bit width is too small to hold the argument value, then a Chisel error is generated.

We are working on a more concise literal syntax for Chisel using symbolic prefix operators, but are stymied by the limitations of Scala operator overloading and have not yet settled on a syntax that is actually more readable than constructors taking strings.

We have also considered allowing Scala literals to be automatically converted to Chisel types, but this can cause type ambiguity and requires an additional import.

The SInt and UInt types will also later support an optional exponent field to allow Chisel to automatically produce optimized fixed-point arithmetic circuits.

Casting

We can also cast types in Chisel:

val sint = 3.S(4.W)             // 4-bit SInt

val uint = sint.asUInt          // cast SInt to UInt
uint.asSInt                     // cast UInt to SInt

NOTE: asUInt/asSInt with an explicit width can not be used to cast (convert) between Chisel datatypes. No width parameter is accepted, as Chisel will automatically pad or truncate as required when the objects are connected.

We can also perform casts on clocks, though you should be careful about this, since clocking (especially in ASIC) requires special attention:

val bool: Bool = false.B        // always-low wire
val clock = bool.asClock        // always-low clock

clock.asUInt                    // convert clock to UInt (width 1)
clock.asUInt.asBool             // convert clock to Bool (Chisel 3.2+)
clock.asUInt.toBool             // convert clock to Bool (Chisel 3.0 and 3.1 only)

Analog/BlackBox type

(Experimental, Chisel 3.1+)

Chisel supports an Analog type (equivalent to Verilog inout) that can be used to support arbitrary nets in Chisel. This includes analog wires, tri-state/bi-directional wires, and power nets (with appropriate annotations).

Analog is an undirectioned type, and so it is possible to connect multiple Analog nets together using the attach operator. It is possible to connect an Analog once using <> but illegal to do it more than once.

val a = IO(Analog(1.W))
val b = IO(Analog(1.W))
val c = IO(Analog(1.W))

// Legal
attach(a, b)
attach(a, c)

// Legal
a <> b

// Illegal - connects 'a' multiple times
a <> b
a <> c