# Abstract interface modelling for better genericity and code clarity

- Institution: CERN
- Department: FPGA Developers' Forum (FDF)
- Speaker: Nicolas Pouillon
- Year: 2025
- Language: English
- Source: [CERN](https://videos.cern.ch/record/3021265)
- Licence: [CERN](http://copyright.web.cern.ch)
- Who can watch: Teens profiles and older (sources give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the source's own words)

AXI4 (Memory-Mapped, Stream) is a well established set of flexible bus interfaces. They can support various address and/or data widths, have optional support for bursts, byte strobing, back-pressure, sideband signals, etc.

Writing generic yet easily maintainable AXI-compatible modules is hard: implementation must take care of abiding interoperability rules for optional signals at all times. Using generics and relying on default port values is root for a code maintenance nightmare, if even possible at all.

Using standard VHDL-93 constructs, We propose an approach for modelling interfaces and configuration in an abstract manner in a way it guarantees correct protocol encoding/decoding with enhanced code compactness, clarity and genericity, still producing optimal synthesis results.

Method, applied to AXI4, will be described in depth. Application of the method to other classes of modelling problems will be discussed.

Reusable library will be available under MIT license..

0:00:00 Slide 1

0:01:34 Slide 2

0:06:19 Slide 3

0:07:50 Slide 4

0:09:47 Slide 5

0:13:17 Slide 6

0:14:22 Slide 7

0:16:59 Slide 8

0:18:30 Slide 9

0:22:46 Slide 10

## Lectures

1. [Abstract interface modelling for better genericity and code clarity](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/learn/cern/3021265/0a762922311f), 32 min (CERN's player)