Description

Clocks and Counters
The purpose of this exercise is to learn how to create counters and to be able to control the sequencing of operations when the actual clock rate is much faster than the rate the operations are occurring.
1 Work Flow
2 Part I
Consider the circuit in Figure 1. It is a 4-bit synchronous counter (textbook Section 5.9.2) that uses four T-type flip-flops (textbook Section 5.5). The value of the counter is comprised of the Q outputs of the T flip-flops. The least significant bit is on the left in Figure 1. The counter increments its value on each positive edge of the clock if the Enable signal is asserted. The counter is reset to 0 by setting the Clear b signal low – it is an active-low asynchronous clear. You are to implement an 8-bit counter of this type.

Figure 1: A 4-bit counter.
2.1 What to Do
The top-level module of your design should have the following signature declaration:
module part1(Clock, Enable, Clear b, CounterValue);
The CounterValue is the value of the counter comprised of the Q outputs of all of the T flip-flops where CounterValue[7] is the most significant bit and CounterValue[0] is the least significant bit of the counter output.
Perform the following steps:
1. Draw the schematic for an 8-bit counter using the same structure as shown in Figure 1.
2. Write a Verilog module for a T-type flip flop (textbook Section 5.5).
3. Write the Verilog module corresponding to your schematic. Your code should use yourT-type flip-flop module that is instantiated eight times.
4. Simulate your counter with ModelSim to satisfy yourself that your circuit is working.Be prepared to justify that your test cases are enough to give confidence that your circuit is working. When you are satisfied with your simulations, you can submit to the Automarker.
5. Create a new Quartus project for your circuit. You will need a top-level module tomake connections from the instantiation of your part1 module to the pushbuttons, switches and HEX displays of the DE1-SoC board. Use the pushbutton KEY0 as the Clock input, switches SW1 and SW0 as Enable and Clear b inputs, and 7-segment displays HEX0 and HEX1 to display the hexadecimal count as your circuit operates. Simulate your new circuit with the DE1-SoC connections with ModelSim to ensure that you have done the connections correctly.
6. Synthesize the circuit with Quartus. To answer the following questions open the compilation report and look under Fitter for resource utilization and TimeQuest Timing Analyzer for Fmax.
How many logic elements (LEs) are used to implement your circuit? For an Intel device, the name of an LE is the ALM (Adaptive Logic Module). This is an indication of how many FPGA resources are used to build your circuit. How does the size of your circuit compare to the size of the FPGA you are using?
What is the maximum frequency, Fmax, at which your circuit can be operated?
7. Use the Quartus RTL Viewer to see how the Quartus software synthesized your Veriloginto a circuit. What are the differences between the circuit synthesized by Quartus and Figure 1?
8. Compile the project to generate a bitstream to make sure your code can at least besynthesized.
9. If you have a board, download the compiled circuit into the FPGA chip. Test thefunctionality of the circuit.
10. If you do not have a board, you can use fake fpga to test that your circuit behaves as expected.
3 Part II
Another way to specify a counter is by using a register and adding 1 to its value. This can be accomplished using the following Verilog statement:
Q <= Q + 1;
Clearly, this is much easier than what you did in Part I. Part I is done to show you the fundamentals of how a counter circuit works, but when using Verilog, we can use the above construct and let the synthesis tool create the actual circuit. It is also much easier to add many features to your counters showing the benefits of Verilog.
An example code fragment is shown in Figure 2 of a counter that counts in hexadecimal going through the values 0 to F repeatedly. The counter also has a parallel load feature (textbook Section 5.9.3), and a synchronous clear and an enable input (textbook Section
5.9.2) to turn the counting on and off.
reg [3:0] q; // declare q wire [3:0] d; // declare d
always @(posedge clock) // triggered every time clock rises begin
if (Clear b == 1’b0) // when Clear b is 0 q <= 0; // q is set to 0
else if (ParLoad == 1’b1)// Check if parallel load q <= d; // load d
else if (q == 4’b1111) // when q is the maximum value for the counter q <= 0; // q reset to 0
else if (Enable == 1’b1) // increment q only when Enable is 1 q <= q + 1; // increment q
end
Figure 2: Example counter code fragment
Observe that q is declared as a 4-bit value making this a 4-bit counter. The check for the maximum value is not necessary in the example above. Why? If you wanted this 4-bit counter to count from 0-9, what would you do?
3.1 The Circuit to Build
Design and implement a circuit using counters that repeatedly outputs the hexadecimal values 0 through F at an output called CounterValue. The circuit is driven by an input clock called ClockIn. There is an active high reset signal called Reset to clear or initialize counters as required. The rate at which the digits change is set by a 2-bit input called Speed according to the following table:
Speed[1] Speed[0] CountRate Description
0 0 Full Once every clock period
0 1 1 Hz Once a second
1 0 0.5 Hz Once every two seconds
1 1 0.25 Hz Once every four seconds
If you use the DE1-SoC board and its 50 MHz clock, Full speed means that the display flashes at 50 MHz, i.e., 50 million times a second. At this speed, what do you expect to see on the display?
You must design a fully synchronous circuit, which means that every flip flop in your circuit should be clocked by the same ClockIn clock signal.
Now, assume that the circuit will run on the DE1-SoC board and ClockIn is driven by the 50 MHz clock available on the board.
To derive the slower flashing rates you should use a counter, call it RateDivider, that is also clocked with ClockIn. The output of RateDivider can be used as part of a circuit to create pulses at the required rates. Every time RateDivider has counted the appropriate number of clock pulses, a pulse should be generated for one clock cycle. Figure 3 shows a timing diagram for a 1 Hz Enable signal assuming that ClockIn is driven by a 50 MHz clock. How large a counter is required to count 50 million clock cycles?
A common way to provide the ability to change the number of pulses counted is to parallel load the counter with the appropriate starting value and count down to zero. With this approach, the end condition is always 0, and you can just load the counter with different starting values depending on the period you want to count. For example, if you want to count 50 million clock cycles, load the counter with 50 million – 1. Why subtract 1?
50 Million Clock Cycles 50 Million Clock Cycles

Figure 3: Timing diagram for a 1 Hz enable signal
Outputting the pulse when the counter is zero can be done using a conditional assign statement like:
assign Enable = (RateDivider == 4’b0000)?1:0;
Note that the above example assumes that RateDivider is a four-bit counter. You will need to adjust the size of the counter depending on the counter width you use.
Assume the hexadecimal counter is called DisplayCounter. The Enable pulses generated using RateDivider can be used to drive an enable signal on DisplayCounter called EnableDC. Recall that an enable signal determines whether a flip flop, register, or counter will change on a clock pulse.
3.2 Automarking and fake fpga
If you have an actual board available, you can continue your design assuming a 50 MHz clock because you will have an actual 50 MHz clock on your board. If you connect your ClockIn signal to the pin called CLOCK 50 you will access the 50 MHz clock.
If you are using the automarker or fake fpga then you will have to do your design differently.
Automarker Assume that when you connect to CLOCK 50 that you will get a 500 Hz clock and you will have to adjust your counter values accordingly. This is because the automarker uses simulation and is checking assuming a 500 Hz clock is used.
fake fpga When you connect to CLOCK 50 on fake fpga you will get a 5000 Hz (5 KHz) clock. This means that if you want to see a 1 Hz flashing rate on fake fpga you will need to use constants corresponding to a 5000 Hz (5 KHz) clock in your circuit.
3.3 What to Do
The top-level module of your design should have the following declaration:
module part2(ClockIn, Reset, Speed, CounterValue);
Important: To match the expectations of the Automarker, you must follow these requirements:
1. Your RateDivider counter must be implemented so that it counts down to 0 and generates an enable pulse when it reaches 0.
2. For the RateDivider counter, if you change the Speed in middle of counting down, the RateDivider counter should continue to count down to 0 and load the new frequency after generating the enable signal.
3. When the RateDivider counter is reset, it should be reset to the full speed value.
4. Remember that CLOCK 50 gives you a 500 Hz clock when using the automarker.
Perform the following steps.
1. Draw a schematic of the circuit you wish to build. This circuit is more complex soit is especially important that you draw a schematic to help you understand how the circuit should work. Work through the functionality of your circuit on the schematic manually to ensure that it will work according to your understanding.
2. Write a Verilog module that realizes the behaviour described in your schematic. Yourcircuit should have ClockIn, Reset and Speed as inputs. The only output is CounterValue. Your Verilog code should use the same names for the wires and instances as shown in your schematic.
3. Simulate your part2 module with ModelSim to satisfy yourself that your circuit is working. Be prepared to justify that your test cases are enough to give confidence that your circuit is working.
NOTE You will also need to think about how to simulate this kind of circuit. For example, how many 50 MHz clock pulses will you need to simulate to show that the RateDivider is properly outputting a 1 Hz pulse? Does it seem reasonable to simulate that many pulses? To help answer this, assume it takes 0.001 seconds to simulate one clock pulse. How long will the simulation take? How can you deal with this situation?
When you are satisfied with your simulations, you can submit to the Automarker, but make sure you have followed the Important requirements given at the beginning of this section and paid attention to Section 3.2.
4. Create a new Quartus project for your circuit. You will need a top-level module tomake connections from the instantiation of your part2 module to the switches and HEX displays of the DE1-SoC board. Use two switches, SW1 and SW0, to drive the Speed input of your module. You should use SW[9] to drive the Reset input of your module.
The 50 MHz clock is generated on the DE1-SoC board and available to you on a pin labeled in the qsf file as CLOCK 50. This means that you can access the 50 MHz clock by declaring a port called CLOCK 50 in your top-level module. See Section 3.5 in the DE1-SoC User Manual to learn more about the clocks on the board.
Simulate your new circuit with the DE1-SoC connections with ModelSim to ensure that you have done the connections correctly.
5. Compile the project to generate a bitstream to make sure your code can at least besynthesized.
6. If you have a board, download the compiled circuit into the FPGA chip. Test thefunctionality of the circuit by toggling the various inputs and observing the outputs.
7. If you do not have a board, you can use fake fpga to test that your circuit behaves as expected. Remember to account for the different clock speeds.
4 Part III
In this part of the exercise you are to implement a Morse code encoder using a lookup table (LUT ) to store the codes, a shift register (textbook Section 5.8.1), and a rate divider similar to what you used in Part II.
Morse code uses patterns of short and long pulses to represent a message. Each letter is represented as a sequence of dots (a short pulse), and dashes (a long pulse). For example, starting from A, the first eight letters of the alphabet have the following representation:
A • — B — • • •
C — • — •
D — • •
E •
F • • — •
G — — •
H • • • •
Your circuit should take as input one of the eight letters of the alphabet starting from A (as in the table above) and display, i.e., flash, the Morse code for it at the output DotDashOut using short and long pulses. The letter is selected by the Letter input using 000 for A, 001 for B, etc. The Morse code for the letter is output when the Start signal is set high using 0.5-second pulses to represent dots, and 1.5-second pulses to represent dashes. The time between pulses is 0.5 seconds. The Resetn input is an active-low asynchronous reset. If no signals have been changed (i.e., no new Letters have been selected, Resetn is high and Start is low), the DotDashOut should stay the same.
The LUT can be implemented as a multiplexer with hard-coded inputs corresponding to the required patterns. The output pattern is selected according to the letter to be displayed. A shift register is first loaded in parallel with a pattern and then the pattern is shifted out of the register, one bit at a time, to be displayed for the appropriate interval.
4.1 What to Do
The top-level module of your design should have the following signature declaration: module part3(ClockIn, Resetn, Start, Letter, DotDashOut);
Important To match the expectations of the Automarker, you must follow this requirement:
1. When you set the Start signal while the previous Morse code sequence is being output, the Morse code specified by the new Letter value should be displayed. This means that the previous code sequence is interrupted and you should begin displaying the new code from the start. The Start signal will be high for one cycle in the tester.
As in the previous part, if you are using the Automarker or fake fpga, refer to Section 3.2 regarding the constants (clock frequencies) to use for your timing calculations.
Perform the following steps.
1. Design your circuit by first drawing a schematic of the circuit. Think and work throughyour schematic to make sure that it will work according to your understanding.
2. Write a Verilog module that realizes the behaviour described in your schematic. Yourcircuit should have ClockIn, Resetn, Start and Letter as inputs. The only output is DotDashOut. Your Verilog code should use the same names for the wires and instances as shown in your schematic.
3. Simulate your part3 module with ModelSim to satisfy yourself that your circuit is working. Be prepared to justify that your test cases are enough to give confidence that your circuit is working.
When you are satisfied with your simulations, you can submit to the Automarker, but make sure you have followed the Important requirement given at the beginning of this section and paid attention to Section 3.2.
4. Create a new Quartus project for your circuit. You will need a top-level module to makeconnections from the instantiation of your part3 module to the switches, pushbuttons and LED displays of the DE1-SoC board. When a user presses KEY1, the circuit should flash on LEDR0 the Morse code for a letter specified by SW2−0. Pushbutton KEY0 should be used as the active-low asynchronous reset. Use CLOCK 50 as the input to ClockIn. Remember that the pushbuttons on the DE1-SoC board are active low.
Simulate your new circuit with the DE1-SoC connections with ModelSim to ensure that you have done the connections correctly.
5. Compile the project to generate a bitstream to make sure your code can at least besynthesized.
6. If you have a board, download the compiled circuit into the FPGA chip. Test thefunctionality of the circuit by toggling the various inputs and observing the outputs.
7. If you do not have a board, you can use fake fpga to test that your circuit behaves as expected. Remember to acccount for the different clock speeds.
5 Submission
When submitting to the Automarker make sure you have modules declared as shown below as the Automarker will be looking for modules with these exact signatures. Ensure you have properly followed Section 3.2 prior to submitting your code.
5.1 Part I
For Part I, you need to submit a file named part1.v with the following module in it:
1. module part1(Clock, Enable, Clear b, CounterValue);
5.2 Part II
For Part II, you need to submit a file named part2.v with the following module in it:
1. module part2(ClockIn, Reset, Speed, CounterValue);
5.3 Part III
For Part III, you need to submit a file named part3.v with the following module in it:
1. module part3(ClockIn, Resetn, Start, Letter, DotDashOut);