Towards a standard VHDL synthesis package

The VHSIC hardware description language (VHDL) Synthesis Special Interest Group (SSIG) has been working on the development of a standard VHDL package for synthesis. The efforts of the group have been divided into four different areas: logic type, representation of numeric types, specification of constraints, and special identifications. Each of these areas addresses an important part of the information required for synthesis of a VHDL model. An important decision of the group was to adopt the std logic type defined in the IEEE std logic 1164 package. The numeric types area was created in order to provide arithmetic capabilities based on the std logic value. The constraints area addresses design information beyond the functionality of the design that is still part of the specification. The special identifications area is a catch-all area for additional information about a design that may be useful to different aspects of the synthesis process.<>