EmbDev.net

Forum: FPGA, VHDL & Verilog Assignment under elsif does not work


Assignment under elsif does not work
von Burak G. (Company: Bilkent Uni) (brekout)

Rate this post
• ▲ useful
▼ not useful 
Hello everyone,

I am developing a brick breaking game in VHDL. For this project, I have 
successfully implemented a image generator and a VGA synchronizer. 
However, I am having problems with the game logic. In this game, bricks 
are supposed to be destroyed when the ball hits. When a collision is 
observed, the ball should change its direction. So as to realize this, I 
wrote the following code:
1
    process(refresh_tick,ball_x,ball_y,xv_reg,yv_reg)

2
    begin

3
         ball_x_next <=ball_x;

4
         ball_y_next <=ball_y;

5
         xv_next<=xv_reg;

6
         yv_next<=yv_reg;

7
         if refresh_tick = '1' then

8
           if ball_y> 400 and ball_x > (bar_l -ball_u) and ball_x < (bar_l +120) then --the ball hits  the bar

9
               yv_next<= -y_v ;

10
           elsif ball_y <= 0 then--The ball hits the wall

11
               yv_next<= y_v;

12
           elsif ball_x <= 0 then --The ball hits the left side of the screen

13
              xv_next<= x_v;

14
           elsif ball_x >= 640 then 

15
              xv_next<= -x_v ; --The ball hits the right side of the screen

16
           elsif is_ball_on_bricks_area and bricks_collection(current_brick_row, current_brick_column) = '1' then

17
              yv_next <= y_v;

18
              bricks_collection(current_brick_row, current_brick_column) <= '0';

19
           end if; 

20
           ball_x_next <=ball_x +xv_reg;

21
           ball_y_next <=ball_y+yv_reg; 

22
        end if;

23
    end process;


In this game, I define bricks as a 2D array:

    type brick_array is array (0 to 4, 0 to 9) of std_logic;
    signal bricks_collection : brick_array := (others => (others => 
'1'));

So, when a collision is detected, the destroyed brick is assigned as '0' 
and ball change its direction yv_next <= y_v; Unfortunately, only one of 
them is executed during the run time which is at this case 
bricks_collection(current_brick_row, current_brick_column) <= '0';. I 
know that the logic I came up with works, that is, collisions are 
detected successfully.

These statements under the last elsif statement should be run 
concurrently. But they are not. How do I make them run concurrently?

So I know that in a process if I do something like this, the second 
assignment takes place at the second clock tick:

    process(clk)
    begin
    a <= b;
    b <= c;
    end process;

Is this a similar problem?

: Edited by Moderator
Report post Edit Move Thread sperren Anmeldepflicht aktivieren Anpinnen Delete topic Thread mit anderem zusammenführen Quote selected text Reply Reply with quote
Re: Assignment under elsif does not work
von Klakx (Guest)

Rate this post
• ▲ useful
▼ not useful 
firstly, please use vhdl formatting in this forum.

secondly, complete your sensitivity list with all used signals like 
"is_ball_on_bricks_area,x,x_v,y_v,.."

Report post Edit Delete Quote selected text Reply Reply with quote
Re: Assignment under elsif does not work
von Burak G. (Company: Bilkent Uni) (brekout)

Rate this post
• ▲ useful
▼ not useful 
Thank you for your reply. I can not go back and change the formatting. 
Sorry about that.

I added is_ball_on_bricks_area to the sensitivity list. However, x_v and 
y_v are constant which are determining the speed of the ball. That is, 
if y_v is 3, ball goes down. If it is -3, the ball goes up.

So let me repeat the problem in different words.

1
elsif is_ball_on_bricks_area and 

2
bricks_collection(current_brick_row, current_brick_column) = '1' then

3
              yv_next <= y_v;

4
              bricks_collection(current_brick_row, current_brick_column) 

5
<= '0';


Here, if I remove bricks_collection part, yv_next <= yv part is executed 
correctly. However, when I keep it as it is, which I should, only the 
second assignment takes place.

Report post Edit Delete Quote selected text Reply Reply with quote
Re: Assignment under elsif does not work
von Klakx (Guest)

Rate this post
• ▲ useful
▼ not useful 
current_brick_row and current_brick_column look also like no constants, 
try to add them also to sensitivity list.

also there is bricks_collection only defined in one arc which will lead 
to latch behavior. I dont know your code and cannot say if this was 
intended.

Report post Edit Delete Quote selected text Reply Reply with quote
Re: Assignment under elsif does not work
von Lothar M. (Company: Titel) (lkmiller) (Moderator)

Rate this post
• ▲ useful
▼ not useful 
bricks_collection has to be in the sensitivity list also. But that will 
not help that far, because this is a very dirty tricky trick here:
1
           elsif is_ball_on_bricks_area and bricks_collection(current_brick_row, current_brick_column) = '1' then

2
              yv_next <= y_v;

3
              bricks_collection(current_brick_row, current_brick_column) <= '0';

4
           end if;

Here we have a asynchronous reset on bricks_collection and therefore a 
latch. Usually latches are a very bad thing, because mostly they 
happen accidentially. In your design this is (like nearly always) due to 
the 2-process coding style.
In other words: bricks_collection is storing some information. Storing 
elements in a FPGA should be flipflops. Therefore there should be 
something like a bricks_collection_next (like all of the other 
flipflops). And that bricks_collection_next then must be written to 
bricks_collection with the (one and olny) clock (like all the others).


BTW just one question: why do you use a process for that all?
It could be easily done concurrent...

Report post Edit Delete Quote selected text Reply Reply with quote
Re: Assignment under elsif does not work
von Burak G. (Company: Bilkent Uni) (brekout)

Rate this post
• ▲ useful
▼ not useful 
Thank you so much. Indeed, latch behavior was not intended.

I was able to solve all my problems by introducing the register logic 
once more.

Miller, before starting on this project, I read few articles, reports, 
and went through some examples of similar games. I saw that they are 
using so-called 2-process design method. Therefore, I adapted a similar 
approach. However, I have never thought "latch behavior" could lead to 
prevent assignment of y_v to yv_next and I have yet to understand the 
reason behind that.

Report post Edit Delete Quote selected text Reply Reply with quote
Watch this topic | Disable multi-page view
Please log in before posting. Registration is free and takes only a minute.
Existing account
Do you have a Google/GoogleMail account? No registration required!
Log in with Google account
No account? Register here.