Electronic – Return from idle state

state-machinesvhdl

I have 5 states : idle, state1, state2, state3, state4. I sometimes need to go to idle according to my design, and when I return from idle, I don't want to start from beginning, I want to start from the last state I was in. I thought about doing this in idle as

if (statereg = 2) then
my_state <= state2;
end if;

Is this a good approach or won't work? Are there better ways? How do VHDL gurus handle this kind of situation, what do we call this method in VHDL, does it have a name?

Best Answer

How complicated is your "idle" state?

If it's relatively simple, perhaps it would be better to simply replicate it; in other words, have separate idle1, idle2, etc. states, one for each of the active states.

Related Solutions

Call a Finite State Machine in VHDL

A FSM is a sequential piece of circuitry, and functions are combinational only, so a function cannot represent by itself a FSM. However, the combinational paths of the FSM can be represented with functions. Typical examples are coding the next state or the outputs based on the current state and inputs. It is a very clean way of coding a FSM.

A procedure, on the other hand, can contain sequential statements, but when they do they are mostly used for testbenches using wait statements, which are not synthesizable.

Electronic – State switches in FSM

What you can do is create an idle state, and when you detect a button press you switch straight to the idle. Then you can have a counter in idle which waits for a while before you start scanning buttons again.

For example:

-- include numeric std
signal idle_counter : unsigned(31 downto 0);

      ...

      when state3 => 
        case bcd_val is
          when "01" => 
                Send <= '1';
                scannel_val <= "0101"; 
                fsm_state <= idle;   -- switch to idle
          when "10" => 
                Send <= '1';
                scannel_val <= "0110";
                fsm_state <= idle;   -- switch to idle
          when others => 
                scannel_val <= "0000";
                Send <= '0'; 
                fsm_state <= state1;   -- carry on scanning
        end case;
        idle_counter <= (others => '0');
        ...
      when idle =>
        if (idle_counter < some_timeout) then  -- some_timeout is how long you want to wait (in clock cycles)
           idle_counter <= idle_counter + "1"; -- increment counter
           fsm_state <= idle;                  -- stay here
        else
           idle_counter <= (others => '0');    -- reset counter
           fsm_state <= state1;                -- go back into checking
        end
        --scannel_val is valid here, so you can do something with it if you'd like.
        ...
      when others => scannel_val <= "0000";

There is one process in this code you've posted.

It starts with

scan_fsm : process (reset, clk) <= Sensitivity list
begin  -- process key_scanner

and ends with

end process scan_fsm;

The clock and reset are part of the sensitivity list. That means that this code is only going to be triggered when either clock changes or reset changes.

De-bouncing can be done in a separate process. Basically, you want to make sure that the button was pressed for a number of microseconds before it triggers. What we want to do is save the value of the input for a number of clock cycles. Then only register a 1 when the history has been constantly 1 for for the past 32 clock cycles.

Example:

-- these are our row inputs (to become bdc_val)
signal row1 : in std_logic; 
signal row2 : in std_logic;

...
-- this is our history vector
signal row1_z : std_logic_vector(31 downto 0);
signal row2_z : std_logic_vector(31 downto 0);

-- debounced signal
signal bcd_val : std_logic_vector(1 downto 0);

-- a whole vector of ones for convenience
signal ones    : std_logic_vector(31 downto 0);
...

ones <= (others => '1');

-- generate our histories
gen_z : process (reset, clk)
begin  
  if (reset = '1') then
    row1_z <= (others => '0');
    row2_z <= (others => '0');
    bcd_val <= (others => '0');
  elsif (rising_edge(clk)) then
    row1_z(31 downto 1) <= row1_z(30 downto 0); -- shift everything up 1
    row1_z(0) <= row1;                          -- save the most recent input
    row2_z(31 downto 1) <= row2_z(30 downto 0); -- shift everything up 1
    row2_z(0) <= row2;                          -- save the most recent input

    -- we only want bcd_val to be 1 when the entire row history for the past 32 cc is 1
    if (row1_z = ones) then
      bcd_val(0) <= '1';
    else 
      bcd_val(0) <= '0';
    end

    if (row2_z = ones) then
      bcd_val(1) <= '1';
    else 
      bcd_val(1) <= '0';
    end
  end
end

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Call a Finite State Machine in VHDL

Electronic – State switches in FSM

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