SystemVerilog Variable and Net

Verilog

During school, my EDA teacher told me to use wire and reg in my Verilog design. For the long time, I have the feeling the wire models a logic connection and reg models hardware register. That’s wrong.

The Verilog HDL LRM has defined many data types, and group them into two main groups: the net data types and variable data types. wire is mostly (and almost all) used net type, and reg is mostly used variable type. LRM difference the net data types and variable data type with if it can store a value. variable can, but net can’t. So the value of net must be depended on other variable.

So, it seems natural to map wire with combination logic, and reg with real registers in hardware. It’s true that wire will model combination logic, but it’s no for reg. In fact, depends on your Verilog code, reg can become combination logic, registers, or even latch.

Consider that the name reg is confusable for people to associate it with a register in real hardware. They choose a poor name.

SystemVerilog

When things comes to SystemVerilog, seems they want to fix this problem. So the SV-LRM makes a distinction between data object and its data type.

data object: A named entity that has a data value associated with it. Examples of data objects are nets, variables, and parameters. A data object has a data type that determines which values the data object can have.

data type: A set of values and a set of operations that can be performed on those values. Examples of data types are logic, real, and string. Data types can be used to declare data objects or to define user-defined data types that are constructed from other data types.

Nets

To declare a net, you use the (simplified) syntax:

<net_type> <data_type> <net_identifier>;

And, wire is one built-in net type. For example:

wire logic w;

SystemVerilog has many built-in data type. And the most used is logic. So above code will declare a data object named w, it a net with net type wire and data type logic.

Variables

To declare a variable, you use the (simplified) syntax:

var <data_type> <variable_identifier>;

An new keyword var is here to explicit declare a variable. For example:

var logic v; // same as var reg v;

will declare a data object name v, it’s variable with data type logic. variable does not have such a thing called variable type.

Like verilog, variable can be combination logic, registers, or even latch.

What about reg? In-fact, reg and logic are the same thing. reg is till there for backward compatible with Verilog. It’s not recommended for new design, since the name confuses a lot.

Implicit Rules

Util now, things are straightforward. If wire is there, you know it’s a net. If you see var, it’s a variable. They all have data type such as logic, reg. The difference between net and variable is that net does not store a value.

But things goes confusion when you still see wire a and reg b in SystemVerilog file… This is may because many designers are come from Verilog, and var or logic can be omitted for compatible with Verilog.

So what is wire a and reg b in SystemVerilog? From LRM, wire a is net declaration with implicit data type logic. So wire a is equivalent to wire logic a.

For reg b it’s not that simple. reg r is equivalent to var logic r for data object inside module. For port, a port can be net or variable, and default is net. So reg b is equivalent to wire logic b for port declaration.

Example

This is a simple example:

module variables_and_nets(only_input);

// Net

    input only_input;

    wire only_wire;

    wire logic wire_logic;

    // This is specially not allowed, since Verilog developer will be unhappy
    // wire reg wire_reg;

// Variable

    var only_var;

    reg only_reg;

    logic only_logic;

    var reg var_reg;

    var logic var_logic;

endmodule

Recommendations

My recommendations are:

For port declaration, use explicit var. This makes your port have be a variable. Multi-driven is not allowed for variable, so you can easily see issue during design.
Use logic mainly. So you will default get a variable, so you can detect multi-drive.
Do not use reg. It’s a poor name and replaced by logic.
If you really want net, use wire.
Set default_nettype directive to none for all source file. It will require you explicit write wire when you want net. Also, it will prevent you from accidentally declare a new net when you have a typo. (If not, synthesis tool will usually give a warning, but quite unremarkable).