README.md
1PyMTL 3 (Mamba)
2==========================================================================
3
4[](https://github.com/pymtl/pymtl3/actions/workflows/python-package-ci.yml)
5[](https://pymtl3.readthedocs.io/en/latest/?badge=latest)
6[](https://codecov.io/gh/pymtl/pymtl3)
7
8PyMTL 3 (Mamba) is the latest version of PyMTL, an open-source
9Python-based hardware generation, simulation, and verification framework with
10multi-level hardware modeling support. The original PyMTL was introduced
11at MICRO-47 in December, 2014. Please note that PyMTL 3 is currently
12**beta** software that is under active development and documentation is
13currently quite sparse.
14
15In June 2019, [Keeping Computer Hardware Fast and Furious: "PyMTL is a fantastic example of what we need to jump-start the open-source hardware ecosystem…It’s a key missing link."](https://research.cornell.edu/news-features/keeping-computer-hardware-fast-and-furious "Link to the article") was featured on Cornell Research.
16
17User Forum
18----------
19We recommend the user to post on https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/pymtl-users to ask questions about using PyMTL 3. The github issues are reserved for development purposes, e.g., bug reports and feature requests.
20
21Related publications
22--------------------------------------------------------------------------
23
24- Shunning Jiang, Christopher Torng, and Christopher Batten. _"An Open-Source Python-Based Hardware Generation, Simulation, and Verification Framework."_ First Workshop on Open-Source EDA Technology (WOSET'18) held in conjunction with ICCAD-37, Nov. 2018.
25
26- Shunning Jiang, Berkin Ilbeyi, and Christopher Batten. _"Mamba: Closing the Performance Gap in Productive Hardware Development Frameworks."_ 55th ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conf. (DAC-55), June 2018.
27
28- Derek Lockhart, Gary Zibrat, and Christopher Batten. _"PyMTL: A Unified Framework for Vertically Integrated Computer Architecture Research."_ 47th ACM/IEEE Int'l Symp. on Microarchitecture (MICRO-47), Dec. 2014.
29
30License
31--------------------------------------------------------------------------
32
33PyMTL is offered under the terms of the Open Source Initiative BSD
343-Clause License. More information about this license can be found here:
35
36 - http://choosealicense.com/licenses/bsd-3-clause
37 - http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause
38
39Installation
40------------
41
42The steps for installing these prerequisites and PyMTL on a fresh Ubuntu
43distribution are shown below. They have been tested with Ubuntu Xenial 18.04.
44
45### Install PyMTL 3
46
47
48**tl; dr** ```pip install pymtl3```
49
50----
51
52PyMTL 3 requires Python 3.6+. We highly recommend you work inside a **virtual environment** instead of calling ```sudo pip install```. Starting from Python 3.5, the use of venv is now recommended for creating virtual environments.
53
54```
55 $ cd <path to where venvs are stored>
56 $ python3 -m venv pymtl3 # you can use whatever Python 3.6+ binary you have
57 $ source pymtl3/bin/activate
58```
59PyMTL 3 needs to use cffi, so install these packages first.
60
61```
62 $ sudo apt-get install git python-dev libffi-dev
63```
64
65PyMTL 3 is available on pypi.org. As a result, you are able to just call ```pip install pymtl3``` to install PyMTL 3.
66
67```
68 $ pip install pymtl3
69```
70
71When you relaunch the bash session, you need to re-enable the venv.
72
73```
74 $ source <path to where venvs are stored>/pymtl3/bin/activate
75```
76
77When you're done testing/developing but you don't want to close the terminal, you can deactivate the virtualenv:
78
79```
80 $ deactivate
81```
82
83
84Additional dependencies include ```verilator```(and ```pkg-config```) when you want to integrate SystemVerilog blackbox into your PyMTL simulation.
85
86### Install Verilator
87
88[Verilator](http://www.veripool.org/wiki/verilator) is an open-source toolchain for compiling SystemVerilog RTL
89models into C++ simulators. You can install Verilator using the
90standard package manager but the version available in the package
91repositories is several years old. This means you will need to build and
92install Verilator from source using the following commands:
93
94```
95 $ sudo apt-get install git make autoconf g++ libfl-dev bison
96 $ mkdir -p ${HOME}/src
97 $ cd ${HOME}/src
98 $ wget http://www.veripool.org/ftp/verilator-4.036.tgz
99 $ tar -xzvf verilator-4.036.tgz
100 $ cd verilator-4.036
101 $ ./configure
102 $ make
103 $ sudo make install
104```
105
106Verify that Verilator is on your path as follows:
107
108```
109 $ cd $HOME
110 $ which verilator
111 $ verilator --version
112```
113
114PyMTL uses `pkg-config` to find the Verilator source files when
115integrating SystemVerilog blackbox. Install
116`pkg-config` and verify that it is setup correctly as follows:
117
118```
119 $ sudo apt-get install pkg-config
120 $ pkg-config --print-variables verilator
121```
122
123If `pkg-config` cannot find information about verilator, then you can
124also explicitly set the following special environment variable:
125
126```
127 $ export PYMTL_VERILATOR_INCLUDE_DIR="/usr/local/share/verilator/include"
128```
129
130
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