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dons

Generally, people use these high-level HDLs, like Lava or Cryptol, because:

- faster design time, as you write less code to get the same things done

- reusable high level specifications

- access to high level optimizations not easily possible on the VHDL level

- easier to formally verify the high level spec matches implementation

(Aside, I used to work for a company that designed and sold these types of toolchains).

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These are all valid points for high-level languages in general. One can add easier parametrization to the list (high-performing HDL code can be terrible to reparametrize).

I was mostly surprised by the choice of a Haskell-based DSL. I think such languages miss their target audience. Most people writing in an HDL are hardware designers without significant software training (I am fortunate to be a software-turned-hardware person). For them making the jump to, f.e. a functional paradigm (as in Bluespec), is much harder compared to a lesser, more popular evil (C/C++ based DSLs like SystemC or AutoESL).

Interesting...where do you recommend starting to learn more about these languages (books, open source languages, etc.)?

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