Write a Blog >>
PLDI 2020
Mon 15 - Fri 19 June 2020
Thu 18 Jun 2020 15:00 - 15:20 at PLDI Research Papers live stream - Language Design I Chair(s): Adrian Sampson

Modern Hardware Description Languages (HDLs) such as SystemVerilog or VHDL are, due to their sheer complexity, insufficient to transport designs through modern circuit design flows. Instead, each design automation tool lowers HDLs to its own Intermediate Representation (IR). These tools are monolithic and mostly proprietary, disagree in their implementation of HDLs, and while many redundant IRs exists, no IR today can be used through the entire circuit design flow. To solve this problem, we propose the LLHD multi-level IR. LLHD is designed as simple, unambiguous reference description of a digital circuit, yet fully captures existing HDLs. We show this with our reference compiler on designs as complex as full CPU cores. LLHD comes with lowering passes to a hardware-near structural IR, which readily integrates with existing tools. LLHD establishes the basis for innovation in HDLs and tools without redundant compilers or disjoint IRs. For instance, we implement an LLHD simulator that runs up to $2.4\times$ faster than commercial simulators but produces equivalent, cycle-accurate results. An initial vertically-integrated research prototype is capable of representing all levels of the IR, implements lowering from the behavioural to the structural IR, and covers a sufficient subset of SystemVerilog to support a full CPU design.

Thu 18 Jun

Displayed time zone: Pacific Time (US & Canada) change

14:20 - 15:40
14:20
20m
Talk
Silq: A High-Level Quantum Language with Safe Uncomputation and Intuitive Semantics
PLDI Research Papers
Benjamin Bichsel ETH Zurich, Switzerland, Maximilian Baader ETH Zurich, Switzerland, Timon Gehr ETH Zurich, Switzerland, Martin Vechev ETH Zurich, Switzerland
14:40
20m
Talk
The Essence of Bluespec: A Core Language for Rule-Based Hardware Design
PLDI Research Papers
Thomas Bourgeat Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, Clément Pit-Claudel Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, Adam Chlipala Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Arvind Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
15:00
20m
Talk
LLHD: A Multi-level Intermediate Representation for Hardware Description Languages
PLDI Research Papers
Fabian Schuiki ETH Zurich, Switzerland, Andreas Kurth ETH Zurich, Switzerland, Tobias Grosser ETH Zurich, Switzerland, Luca Benini ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Link to publication Pre-print
15:20
20m
Talk
On the Principles of Differentiable Quantum Programming Languages
PLDI Research Papers
Shaopeng Zhu University of Maryland, USA, Shih-Han Hung University of Maryland, USA, Shouvanik Chakrabarti University of Maryland, USA, Xiaodi Wu University of Maryland, USA