Processor design using a functional hardware description language

This contribution documents the development, implementation, and verification of a RISC microprocessor using the functional hardware description language Lava. Basic methods to describe hardware in Lava are introduced and extended towards implementation of instruction set architecture and pipeline structure and control. FPGA synthesis results are presented and compared against a traditional VHDL-based design flow. An implementation of a coprocessor interface used to accelerate application-specific code is discussed supported by the case study of fast Fourier transform. To authors’ best knowledge it is the first attempt to describe, simulate, verify, synthesize and test-run a complete von Neumann machine in Lava. Project experiences are summarized followed by a sketch of possible directions for further improvement of Lava in particular and functional hardware description languages in general.