Adding UVM support

[thomasnormal]

I realize this might be coming up regularly. But I'm interested in helping contribute code for this.

I see there are already some projects like https://github.com/AsFigo/ivl_uvm that were made but never integrated back into icarus.

I'm curious if there's interest in adding features like

• parameterized classes
• Unpacked structs
• Static method calls
• Type parameters in function signatures

and all the other system verilog features that would be needed.

[caryr]

Yes, this comes up from time to time and we would love to support UVM. The issue always has been the time we have available to work on adding new features, bug fixes, releases, etc. has been fairly limited for the primary developers for a number of years. Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

[thomasnormal]

My initial plan is to get it to a point where I have everything needed to run the test benches in https://github.com/mbits-mirafra

From my initial analysis, this will include:

• Queue Methods, push/pop/insert/delete
• Static Method Support
• Nested Scope Resolution & Nested Properties
• Virtual Dispatch
• Virtual interfaces
• Limited UVM library
• ...

I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on the right order of solving things, or a TODO/tracker of features you wish for.

It's not clear to me how far https://github.com/AsFigo/ivl_uvm got, or if they ever tried to merge back upstream?

[svenka3]

Thanks for (re)triggering this topic. I would love to see this evolve in steps, given the core R&D bandwidth constraints on Icarus side. Last I checked, class method calls across handles didn't work well in Icarus. Once that works, I believe we can have some basic SV class-based testbenches running. Will try again soon.

Regards

[svenka3]

Tested on latest iverilog and get a better error message as below, but I am afraid UVM is far away till we get basic method calling working properly (including virtual method behaviour).

Icarus Verilog Parser/Elaborator version 13.0 (devel) (s20150603-1884-gb210eb826-dirty)

ivl_uvm_i292.sv:17: sorry: Method name nesting is not supported yet.
ivl_uvm_i292.sv:17:      : method path: u0.ivl_randomize
ivl_uvm_i292.sv:17: error: Object $unit.uvm_driver.this has no method "u0.ivl_randomize(...)".
1 error(s) during elaboration.

Test is from #292

Thanks