How to run post-synthesis simulation with the IceStorm iCE40 FPGA flow

Question

It is good design practice to not only verify Verilog designs with regular pre-synthesis (behavioral) simulation, but also using post-synthesis simulation. This is practically mandatory when debugging mismatches between simulation and hardware. How can this be achieved with the open source IceStorm flow for iCE40 FPGAs?

Answer 1

See https://github.com/cliffordwolf/icestorm/tree/master/examples/icestick for an example. The "rs232demo" project comes with a test bench and the Makefile contains rules for pre- and post-synthesis simulation:

make rs232demo_tb.vcd      # pre-synthesis simulation
make rs232demo_syntb.vcd   # post-synthesis simulation

Use a VCD viewer like gtkwave to view the VCD files generated by this two commands.

In order to run post-synthesis simulation one must first convert the BLIF netlist (synthesis output) to a Verilog netlist: yosys -p 'read_blif -wideports example.blif; write_verilog example_syn.v'

This netlist will instantiate iCE40 device primitives. Yosys comes with simulation models for those primitives. Run the command yosys-config --datdir/ice40/cells_sim.v to print the full path name of that simulation library. Use this Verilog file when compiling your simulation.

Edit: Two additional FAQs regarding post-synthesis simulation:

(1) The clock should not have a clock edge at timestamp 0 as this can result in a race condition between clocked register updates and register initialization. I.e. the following test bench code for generating the clock is problematic:

    reg clk = 1;
    always #5 clk = ~clk;

Instead you should use something like the following, that leaves the clock signal undefined for an initial period:

    reg clk;
    always #5 clk = (clk === 1'b0);

(2) Some signals (or individual bits of a vector) can be optimized away during synthesis. This bits may be set to a constant value (usually x) or left floating by the tool. This can be confusing when trying to inspect post-synthesis simulation results. Set the keep attribute on nets that you want the tool to preserve:

    (* keep *) reg [31:0] foobar;