VERILOG HDL :: Blocking & NON- Blocking assignments

Digital Design Using Verilog
- For Absolute Beginners
LEC 8 :Verilog Blocking & Non-
Blocking Assignments

PROLOGUE
• In the earlier lecture , you have seen the basic
concepts of Verilog Behavioral modelling with
some examples.
• Before going further, let us recapitulate what we
have learnt in the earlier lecture .
• In the behaviour model,which is mainly based on
the Proedural block ,there are aminly two
importanr constructs.
• One is always block and the other is Initial Block.

Procedural assignments
• Always block is used to describe the circuit
functionality using behavioral statements.
• The Initial block is used to initialize behavioral
statements for simulation.
• Each ‘always’ and ‘Initial’ block represents a
separate process.
• These processes run in parallel(concurrently)and
start at time 0.
• Statements inside the process are execute
sequentially.

Always block
• Always block consists of behavioural statements
and keywords begin and end must be used if the
block contains more than one statements.
• Example:
module clk_gen
# (parameter period = 50)
(
output reg clk
)
initial
clk = 1’b0;

contd
23 June 2020 5yayavaram@yahoo.com
• always
# (period/2 ) clk = ~ clk;
initial
# 100 $ finish;
endmodule

Example -2
• module clock _gen (output, reg, clock);//Initialize
clock at time zero
initial
clock = 1'b0;
//Toggle clock every half-cycle (time period = 20)
always
# 10 clock = ~clock;
initial
#1000 $finish;
endmodule

contd
• In this example , the always statement starts at time
0 and executes the statement clock = ~clock at every
10 time units.
• If the initialization of clock is inside the always
block, clock will be initialized every time the
‘always’ is entered.
• Also, the simulation must be halted inside an initial
statement. If there is no $stop or $finish statement to
halt the simulation, the clock generator will run
forever.

Initial Block
• All statements inside an ‘initial’ statement constitute
the initial block. This is executed only once by the
simulator.
• The multiple statements are grouped in a ‘begin ..
end’ structure.
• The statement inside an ‘initial’ block start at time 0.
• If there are multiple blocks all the blocks start
concurrently at time 0 only.
• The initial block is typically used to write test bench
for simulation.

Ex: Initial Block
• module stimulus;
reg x,y, a, b, m;
initial
m = 1'b0; //single statement; need not be grouped
initial
begin
#5 a = 1'b1; //multiple statements ,so grouped
#25 b = 1'b0;
• end

ex contd
initial
begin
#10 x = 1'b0;
#25 y = 1'b1;
end
Initial
#50 $ finish; // no grouping
endmodule

ex contd
• Thus, the execution sequence of the statements
inside the initial blocks will be as follows.
time statement executed
0 m = 1'b0;
5 a = 1'b1;
10 x = 1'b0;
30 b = 1'b0;
35 y = 1'b1;
50 $finish;

• Procedural assignments update values of reg,
integer, real, or time variables.
• The value placed on a variable will remain
unchanged until another procedural assignment
updates the variable with a different value.
• There are two types of procedural assignment
statements .
(i).Blocking assignments &
(ii).Non-Blocking Assignments
Procedural Assignment types

BLOCKING ASSIGNMENT
• It is the most commonly used assignment and
denoted by ‘equal to sign ‘ (=).
• The target of the assignment is gets updated before
the next sequential in the procedural block is
executed.
• That means, a statement using the blocking
assignment blocks the execution of the statements
following it,until it gets completed.
• This type of assignment is normally used for
combinational logic For ex: Y = A & B;

Non-Blocking Assignment(<=)
• This assignment is denoted by ‘less than equal to’
symbol. It is normally used in Sequential logic.
• In this style , the assignment to the target gets
scheduled for the end of the simulation cycle.
• i.e normally occurs at the end of the sequential block
• The statements, subsequent to the instruction under
consideration are not blocked by the assignment.
• This non-blocking assignment uses several reg type
variables synchronously under the control of
common clock.

Example-Blocking
• reg x, y, z;
reg [15:0] reg_a, reg_b;
integer count;
initial begin
x = 0; y = 1; z = 1; // Scalar assignments
count = 0; //Assignment to integer variables
reg_a = 16'b0; reg_b = reg_a; / initialize vectors
#15 reg_a[2] = 1'b1; delay
#10 reg_b[15:13] = {x, y, z}
count = count + 1;
end

Example-Blocking
• reg x, y, z;
• reg [15:0] reg_a, reg_b;
• integer count;
• initial begin
• x = 0; y = 1; z = 1; // Scalar assignments
• count = 0; //Assignment to integer variables
• reg_a = 16'b0; reg_b = reg_a; / initialize vectors
• #15 reg_a[2] = 1'b1; delay
• #10 reg_b[15:13] = {x, y, z}
• count = count + 1;
• end

contd
• All statements x = 0 through reg_b = reg_a are
executed at time 0.
• Statement reg_a[2] = 0 at time = 15
• Statement reg_b[15:13] = {x, y, z} at time = 25
• Statement count = count + 1 at time = 25
• Since there is a delay of 15 and 10 in the preceding
statements, count = count + 1 will be executed at
time = 25 units

Ex: Blocking vs Non-Blocking
Lets take the following example. Assume that initially,
a= 1 and b =2

contd
• After simulation the result is
• a = b = 2 ; a=c=2 --in the blocking assignment
• a = b = 2 ; a=c=1 --in non-blocking assignment

Blocking & Non Blocking Examples
• begin -------//Blocking example
a = 1 ; // at time 0 , the variable a is 1
#10 a = 0; // at time 10 , the variable a = 0
# 5 a = 4; // at time 15 ,the variable a = 4;
end
• begin ………// non-blocking example
a <= 1 ; // at time 0 the variable a = 1.
#10 a <= 0 ; // at time 5 the variable a = 4
# 5 a<= 4 ; // at time 10 the variable a = 0
end

Another example
• module block_nonblock();
reg a,b,c,d,e,f;
initial begin
a =#10 1’b1 ;//the variable a= 1 at time 10
b = #20 1’b0 ;// the variable a= 0 at time 30
c = # 40 1’b 1 ;// the variable a =1 at time 70
end
initial begin
d <= #10 1’b1 ; // the variable a = 1 at time 10

contd
e <= # 20 1’b 0 ; // the variable a = 0 at time 20
f <= # 40 1’b 1 ; // the variable a = 1 at time 40
end
endmodule

(i). always @(posedge clk) (ii).always@(posedge clk)
begin begin
x = next_x ; x <= next_x;
end end
DESIGN EXAMPLES

Different Example
always@(posedge clk) always @(posedge clk)
begin begin
x = next_x ; x<= next_x;
y = x; y <= x;
end end

Ex: fork and join
• fork This fork –join block has the same
a = 1 ; functionality as the block with
# 10 a = 0; non-blocking assignment.
# 5 a = 4;
join

While loop
Initial begin
Count = 0;
While (count <101)
begin
$display (‘count = %d”,count);
count = count +1;
end
end

If –else example
always @ * begin
if(sel1)
q = A:
else if(sel2)
q = B;
else q =C ;
end

THANQ FOR WATCHINIG
GOOD LUCK !!

VERILOG HDL :: Blocking & NON- Blocking assignments

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