KBS blockHDLTM
Background of blockHDL
blockHDL® is a tool set originally developed and marketed by Knowledge Based Silicon Corporation, having been developed from 1993 through 1997. This tool set was created as a result of direct and close involvement of Sony Corporation of Japan, whose design groups were users of the product during that time. Its sole intent as a product was to allow a designer to create a design hierarchy and manage the artifacts of that hierarchy, with the intention of generating a fully realized and instantiated VHDL/Verilog design from the artifacts so attached as blocks within the predominant hierarchical block diagram structure. Link to KBS EDA Product Website.
blockHDL originally ran on Sun, HP and IBM RS/6000 workstations. Currently, the Solaris version is all that I am making available for University use. (This may change as I continue to discuss the disposition of the software with KBS, the owner of the software copyright). At some point, I hope to make blockHDL available under Linux. If I can get appropriate funding, I would also like to migrate it to more up-to-date GUI technology, since what is employed is over a decade old (Motif on X-11R4).
Background of the Block Diagram
The basic construct within blockHDL is the block diagram, a familiar construct to hardware designers who had been exposed to these as a result of experience in schematic capture (this during a time when HDL-based design was still being adopted). The block diagram is based on the signal flow graph (see J. Hayes, Computer Architecture & Organization, 1979, Link to 3rd edition). It is the basis for partitioning a hardware system into its underlying blocks, along with providing the means to specify the interconnect of control signals and data path between them.
blockHDL Resources
The following links take you to the associated Manual and Release Notes web pages and PDF files. blockHDL only has one manual, and thus there are no separate Users and Reference Manuals. These are linked and used here with the kind permission of KBS Corporation. (Note that the conversion of the manual pages to HTML is less than perfect, and in some places is downright poor. My recommendation is to view/print the PDF versions of the chapters.)
blockHDL v2.0 Manual - HTML: Ch1, Ch2, Ch3, Ch4, Ch5, Ch6, Ch7, Ch8, Ch9, Appendix-A, Appendix-B, Glossary.
At this point, there is no comprehensive hyperlinked Manual or Index for blockHDL, as there is with flowHDL.
blockHDL v2.0 Manual - PDF: Ch1, Ch2, Ch3, Ch4, Ch5, Ch6, Ch7, Ch8, Ch9, Appendix-A, Appendix-B, Glossary.
blockHDL v2.0 Release Notes - HTML: v2.0, v2.1, v2.1a.
blockHDL v2.0 Release Notes - PDF: v2.0, v2.1, v2.1a.
The blockHDL software is available by going the the KBS website and requesting an evaluation copy of the software. Once an evaluation request is made, the company generally forwards these to me, and I have the ability to issue an appropriate license (based on Highland Software's license scheme). www.kbscorp.com/eda
The blockHDL® Users Manual can be accessed, either as a set of PDF files, or as a set of HTML pages, as indicated above. Since blockHDL doesn't have an integrated help system as such, I'd recommend you save the link to the User's Manual Page and keep a browser up while running blockHDL.
Unix Environment Variables - blockHDL's basic C shell script for execution on Unix/Solaris can be accessed here (Unix .csh file). This should be customized for your directory path, and also to include the Printer name to which you will use for printing. Consult the printer naming conventions for the various CSE or EE labs (see your respective sysadmin for this information). Get the file from the path /usr/local/etc/flowHDL.csh and copy it into your $HOME directory. Or, take mine and modify it - get flowHDL.csh here (soon). Remember, to run it under Unix under the C shell, you run the command "source flowHDL.csh". Consult the Unix man pages for more information.
Unix Display Symbol Settings - blockHDL's X-windows key bindings (XkeysymDB file) which is required in order for all of the key bindings to work (just as with flowHDL). This file must be placed in the hard coded path /usr/lib/X11 on your Unix machine. For the CSE department, this directory is located on each local Sun Blade workstation, and you must have Root privileges to set this up. If you need to run flowHDL or blockHDL on a workstation for which this path file has not been set up, download this file and contact your respective sysadmin to make the change. Get the XkeysymDB file here.