PandA 0.9.3 released

New features introduced:
– general improvement of performances of generated circuits
– added full support to GCC 4.9 family which is now the default
– improved retrieving of GCC alias analysis information
– added first version of VHDL backend
– added support to CycloneV
– added support to Artix7
– extended support to Virtex7 boards family
– added option –top-rtldesign-name that controls which is the function to be synthesized by the RTL backed
– it is now possible to write the testbench in C instead of using the xml file
– added a first experimental backend to yosys (yosys link )
– added examples/crc_yosys which tests yosys backend and C based testbenches
– improved Verilog testbench generation: it is now fully compliant with cycle based simulators (e.g., VERILATOR)
– added option –backend-script-extensions to pass further constraints to the RTL synthesis (e.g., pin assignment)
– added examples/VGA showing how to integrate existing HDL based IPs in a real FPGA design
– added scripts and results for CHStone synthesis of Lattice based designs
– improved support of complex numbers
– single precision soft-float functions redesigned: now –soft-float is the default and –flopoco becomes optional
– single precision floating point division implemented exploiting Goldshmidt algorithm
– improved synthesis of libm functions
– improved libm regression test
– improved architectural timing model
– improved graphviz representation of FSMs: timing information has been added
– added option –post-rescheduling to further improve the resource usage
– parameter registering is now performed and it can be controlled by using option –registered-inputs
– added a full implementation of Bit Value analysis and coupled with Value Range analysis performed by GCC
– added option –experimental-setup to control bambu defaults:
* BAMBU-PERFORMANCE-MP – multi-port performance oriented setup
* BAMBU-PERFORMANCE – single port performance oriented setup
* BAMBU-AREA-MP – multi-port area oriented setup
* BAMBU-AREA – single-port area oriented setup
* BAMBU – no specific optimizations enabled
– improved code speculation
– improved memory localization
– added option –do-not-expose-globals making possible localization of globals, as it is similarly done by some commercial tools
– added support of high latency memories and of distributed memories: zero, one and two delays memories are supported
– added option –aligned-access to drive the memory allocation towards more simple block RAM models: it can be used under some restricted assumptions (e.g., no vectorization and no structs used)
– ported the GCC algorithm which rewrites a division by a constant in adds and shifts
– added option –hls-div that maps integer divisions and modulus on a C based implementation of the Newton-Raphson algorithm
– improved technology libraries management:
* technology libraries and contraints are now managed in a independent way
* multiple technology libraries can be provided to the tool at the same time
– improved and parallelized PandA test regression infrastructure
– added support to Centos7, fedora 21, Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 14.10 distributions
– complete refactoring of output messages

Problems fixed:
– fixed problem related to Bison 2.7
– fixed reinstallation of PandA in a different folder
– fixed installation problems on systems where boost and gcc are not installed in default locations
– removed some implicit conversions from generated verilog circuits

For any information or bug report, please write to panda-info@elet.polimi.it or to