The BLIF Code Generator (-tblif)

The BLIF code generator supports emitting the design to a blif format file as accepted by:

ABC: A System for Sequential Synthesis and Verification <http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~alanmi/abc/>

This package contains tools sometimes used by ASIC designers. This blif target emits .blif file that the ABC system can read int via the “read_blif” command.

USAGE

This code generator is intended to process structural Verilog source code. To convert a design to blif, use this command:

% iverilog -tblif -o<path>.blif  <source files>...

The source files can be Verilog, SystemVerilog, VHDL, whatever Icarus Verilog supports, so long as it elaborates down to the limited subset that the code generator supports. In other words, the files must be structural.

The root module of the elaborated design becomes the model is generated. That module may instantiate sub-modules and so on down the design, completing the design. The output model is flattened, so it doesn’t invoke any subcircuits. Bit vectors are exploded out at the model ports and internally. This is necessary since blif in particular and ABC in general processes bits, not vectors.

LIMITATIONS

Currently, only explicit logic gates and continuous assignments are supported.

The design must contain only one root module. The name of that root module becomes the name of the blif model in the “.model” record.