vhdl D-Flip-Flops (DFF) and latches Clock edge detection

Example

The short story

Whith VHDL 2008 and if the type of the clock is bit, boolean, ieee.std_logic_1164.std_ulogic or ieee.std_logic_1164.std_logic, a clock edge detection can be coded for rising edge

• if rising_edge(clock) then
• if clock'event and clock = '1' then -- type bit, std_ulogic or std_logic
• if clock'event and clock then -- type boolean

and for falling edge

• if falling_edge(clock) then
• if clock'event and clock = '0' then -- type bit, std_ulogic or std_logic
• if clock'event and not clock then -- type boolean

This will behave as expected, both for simulation and synthesis.

Note: the definition of a rising edge on a signal of type std_ulogic is a bit more complex than the simple if clock'event and clock = '1' then. The standard rising_edge function, for instance, has a different definition. Even if it will probably make no difference for synthesis, it could make one for simulation.

The use of the rising_edge and falling_edge standard functions is strongly encouraged. With previous versions of VHDL the use of these functions may require to explicitly declare the use of standard packages (e.g. ieee.numeric_bit for type bit) or even to define them in a custom package.

Note: do not use the rising_edge and falling_edge standard functions to detect edges of non-clock signals. Some synthesizers could conclude that the signal is a clock. Hint: detecting an edge on a non-clock signal can frequently be done by sampling the signal in a shift register and comparing the sampled values at different stages of the shift register.

The long story

Properly describing the detection of the edges of a clock signal is essential when modelling D-Flip-Flops (DFF). An edge is, by definition, a transition from one particular value to another. For instance, we can defined the rising edge of a signal of type bit (the standard VHDL enumerated type that takes two values: '0' and '1') as the transition from '0' to '1'. For type boolean we can define it as a transition from false to true.

Frequently, more complex types are used. The ieee.std_logic_1164.std_ulogic type, for instance, is also an enumerated type, just like bit or boolean, but it has 9 values instead of 2:

Value	Meaning
'U'	Uninitialized
'X'	Forcing unknown
'0'	Forcing low level
'1'	Forcing high level
'Z'	High impedance
'W'	Weak unknown
'L'	Weak low level
'H'	Weak high level
'-'	Don't care

Defining a rising edge on such a type is a bit more complex than for bit or boolean. We can, for instance, decide that it is a transition from '0' to '1'. But we can also decide that it is a transition from '0' or 'L' to '1' or 'H'.

Note: it is this second definition that the standard uses for the rising_edge(signal s: std_ulogic) function defined in ieee.std_logic_1164.

When discussing the various ways to detect edges, it is thus important to consider the type of the signal. It is also important to take the modeling goal into account: simulation only or logic synthesis? Let us illustrate this on a few examples:

Rising edge DFF with type bit

signal clock, d, q: bit;
...
P1: process(clock)
begin
  if clock = '1' then
    q <= d;
  end if;
end process P1;

Technically, on a pure simulation semantics point of view, process P1 models a rising edge triggered DFF. Indeed, the q <= d assignment is executed if and only if:

• clock changed (this is what the sensitivity list expresses) and
• the current value of clock is '1'.

As clock is of type bit and type bit has only values '0' and '1', this is exactly what we defined as a rising edge of a signal of type bit. Any simulator will handle this model as we expect.

Note: For logic synthesizers, things are a bit more complex, as we will see later.

Rising edge DFF with asynchronous active high reset and type bit

In order to add an asynchronous active high reset to our DFF, one could try something like:

signal clock, reset, d, q: bit;
...
P2_BOGUS: process(clock, reset)
begin
  if reset = '1' then
    q <= '0';
  elsif clock = '1' then
    q <= d;
  end if;
end process P2_BOGUS;

But this does not work. The condition for the q <= d assignment to be executed should be: a rising edge of clock while reset = '0'. But what we modeled is:

• clock or reset or both changed and
• reset = '0' and
• clock = '1'

Which is not the same: if reset changes from '1' to '0' while clock = '1' the assignment will be executed while it is not a rising edge of clock.

In fact, there is no way to model this in VHDL without the help of a signal attribute:

P2_OK: process(clock, reset)
begin
  if reset = '1' then
    q <= '0';
  elsif clock = '1' and clock'event then
    q <= d;
  end if;
end process P2_OK;

The clock'event is the signal attribute event applied to signal clock. It evaluates as a boolean and it is true if and only if signal clock changed during the signal update phase that just preceded the current execution phase. Thanks to this, process P2_OK now perfectly models what we want in simulation (and synthesis).

Synthesis semantics

Many logic synthesizers identify signal edge detections based on syntactic patterns, not on the semantics of the VHDL model. In other words, they consider what the VHDL code looks like, not what behavior it models. One of the patterns they all recognize is:

if clock = '1' and clock'event then

So, even in the example of process P1 we should use it if we want our model to be synthesizable by all logic synthesizers:

signal clock, d, q: bit;
...
P1_OK: process(clock)
begin
  if clock = '1' and clock'event then
    q <= d;
  end if;
end process P1_OK;

The and clock'event part of the condition is completely redundant with the sensitivity list but as some synthesizers need it...

Rising edge DFF with asynchronous active high reset and type std_ulogic

In this case, expressing the rising edge of the clock and the reset condition can become complicated. If we retain the definition of a rising edge that we proposed above and if we consider that the reset is active if it is '1' or 'H', the model becomes:

library ieee;
use ieee.std_logic_1164.all;
...
signal clock, reset, d, q: std_ulogic;
...
P4: process(clock, reset)
begin
  if reset = '1' or reset = 'H' then
    q <= '0';
  elsif clock'event and
        (clock'last_value = '0' or clock'last_value = 'L') and
        (clock = '1' or clock = 'H') then
    q <= d;
  end if;
end process P4;

Note: 'last_value is another signal attribute that returns the value the signal had before the last value change.

Helper functions

The VHDL 2008 standard offers several helper functions to simplify the detection of signal edges, especially with multi-valued enumerated types like std_ulogic. The std.standard package defines the rising_edge and falling_edge functions on types bit and boolean and the ieee.std_logic_1164 package defines them on types std_ulogic and std_logic.

Note: with previous versions of VHDL the use of these functions may require to explicitly declare the use of standard packages (e.g. ieee.numeric_bit for type bit) or even to define them in a user package.

Let us revisit the previous examples and use the helper functions:

signal clock, d, q: bit;
...
P1_OK_NEW: process(clock)
begin
  if rising_edge(clock) then
    q <= d;
  end if;
end process P1_OK_NEW;

signal clock, d, q: bit;
...
P2_OK_NEW: process(clock, reset)
begin
  if reset = '1' then
    q <= '0';
  elsif rising_edge(clock) then
    q <= d;
  end if;
end process P2_OK_NEW;

library ieee;
use ieee.std_logic_1164.all;
...
signal clock, reset, d, q: std_ulogic;
...
P4_NEW: process(clock, reset)
begin
  if reset = '1' then
    q <= '0';
  elsif rising_edge(clock) then
    q <= d;
  end if;
end process P4_NEW;

Note: in this last example we also simplified the test on the reset. Floating, high impedance, resets are quite rare and, in most cases, this simplified version works for simulation and synthesis.