FPGA Block RAM Packing

In an earlier blog post, I was lamenting how one-ninth of an FPGA block RAM was wasted when storing 8-bit ROM data, because there’s no simple way to make use of the 9th parity bit in each word of a block RAM. Horrors! To fight this injustice, I’ve developed a solution that I call packed ROM. It stores nine 8-bit bytes in eight 9-bit words of block RAM, and provides an interface to read the data as if it were an 8-bit memory with a larger depth. Using this method, I’m able to store 1152 bytes of read-only data per block RAM instead of only 1024. The solution relies on the fact that the block RAMs are dual port – you can read from two different addresses simultaneously. Compared with using the same number of block RAMs as a standard 8-bit wide ROM, this solution consumes an extra 54 LUT4s in a MachXO2-1200 FPGA – about 4 percent of the total. It increases the MachXO2-1200’s effective capacity for this type of 8-bit ROM data from 7168 to 8064 bytes.

Here’s the Verilog code, as well as a Python program that reads a plain binary file and writes a “packed” file in .mem format. The code assumes 7 block RAMs, but should be easily adaptable to other numbers.

module packedROM #(parameter NUM_BLOCK_RAMS = 7) (
    input [12:0] addr,
	input clk,
	output reg [7:0] Q
    );
	
	// packs 1152*NUM_BLOCK_RAMS 8-bit data bytes into 1024*NUM_BLOCK_RAMS 9-bit words 
	// uses 54 LUT4s of the MachXO2
	// may need to change addr width depending on NUM_BLOCK_RAMS. Use $clog2()? 
	
	// nine bytes A-I are packed into eight 9-bit words as follows:
	// 0: I3 I2 I1 I0 A4 A3 A2 A1 A0
	// 1: I7 I6 I5 I4 B4 B3 B2 B1 B0
	// 2: F7 F6 E7 E6 C4 C3 C2 C1 C0
	// 3: H7 H6 G7 G6 D4 D3 D2 D1 D0
	// 4: A7 A6 A5 E5 E4 E3 E2 E1 E0
	// 5: B7 B6 B5 F5 F4 F3 F2 F1 F0
	// 6: C7 C6 C5 G5 G4 G3 G2 G1 G0
	// 7: D7 D6 D5 H5 H4 H3 H2 H1 H0
	// bytes A-H are sequental in the byte-oriented address space below addr 1024*NUM_BLOCK_RAMS
	// byte I is one of the "extra" bytes, in byte-oriented address space beyond addr 1024*NUM_BLOCK_RAMS
	
	reg [12:0] wordAddressA;
	reg [12:0] wordAddressB;
	
	wire [8:0] QA;
	wire [8:0] QB; 
	
	// dualPortROM is a wrapper for the MachXO2 block RAMs, created by the Lattice IP Express tool.
	// it is actually a dual port RAM with the write input unused
	dualPortROM myDualPortROM(
		.DataInA(9'b000000000),
		.DataInB(9'b000000000),
		.AddressA(wordAddressA),
		.AddressB(wordAddressB),
		.ClockA(clk),
		.ClockB(clk),
		.ClockEnA(1'b1),
		.ClockEnB(1'b1),
		.WrA(1'b0),
		.WrB(1'b0),
		.ResetA(1'b0),
		.ResetB(1'b0), 
		.QA(QA),
		.QB(QB)
	);
	
	wire [12:0] overflowAddr = addr - (NUM_BLOCK_RAMS * 1024);
			
	always @* begin
		if (addr < NUM_BLOCK_RAMS * 1024) begin
			// packed area, bytes A-H
			wordAddressA <= addr;
			// word address for the upper bits depends on low three bits of the byte address
			case (addr[2:0])
				0: begin // A
					wordAddressB <= { addr[12:3], 3'b100 };
					Q <= { QB[8:6], QA[4:0] };	
					end
				1: begin // B
					wordAddressB <= { addr[12:3], 3'b101 };
					Q <= { QB[8:6], QA[4:0] };	
					end
				2: begin // C
					wordAddressB <= { addr[12:3], 3'b110 };
					Q <= { QB[8:6], QA[4:0] };	
					end
				3: begin // D
					wordAddressB <= { addr[12:3], 3'b111 };
					Q <= { QB[8:6], QA[4:0] };	
					end	
				4: begin // E
					wordAddressB <= { addr[12:3], 3'b010 };
					Q <= { QB[6:5], QA[5:0] };	
					end		
				5: begin // F
					wordAddressB <= { addr[12:3], 3'b010 };
					Q <= { QB[8:7], QA[5:0] };	
					end											
				6: begin // G
					wordAddressB <= { addr[12:3], 3'b011 };
					Q <= { QB[6:5], QA[5:0] };	
					end						
				7: begin // H
					wordAddressB <= { addr[12:3], 3'b011 };
					Q <= { QB[8:7], QA[5:0] };	
					end
			endcase
		end
		else begin
			// overflow area, byte I
			// word address is byte overflow address times 8 for the lower bits, and times 8 plus 1 for the upper bits
			wordAddressA <= { overflowAddr[9:0], 3'b000 };
			wordAddressB <= { overflowAddr[9:0], 3'b001 };
			Q <= { QB[8:5], QA[8:5] };
		end
	end
endmodule




import os
from array import array

infile = "coderom.bin"
outfile = "coderom.mem"

inputData = array('B')

insize = os.path.getsize(infile)
with open(infile, 'rb') as f:
    inputData.fromfile(f, insize)
    out = open(outfile,"w") 
    
    num_block_rams = 7
    outsize = 1024 * num_block_rams
   
    for x in range(0,outsize):
        baseAddr = x & ~7
        if x & 7 == 0:
            out.write('{:02X}\n'.format( (((inputData[outsize+baseAddr//8])&0xF)<<5) | ((inputData[baseAddr])&0x1F)))
        elif x & 7 == 1:
            out.write('{:02X}\n'.format( (((inputData[outsize+baseAddr//8])&0xF0)<<1) | ((inputData[baseAddr+1])&0x1F)))
        elif x & 7 == 2:
            out.write('{:02X}\n'.format( (((inputData[baseAddr+5])&0xC0)<<1) | (((inputData[baseAddr+4])&0xC0)>>1) | ((inputData[baseAddr+2])&0x1F)))
        elif x & 7 == 3:
            out.write('{:02X}\n'.format( (((inputData[baseAddr+7])&0xC0)<<1) | (((inputData[baseAddr+6])&0xC0)>>1) | ((inputData[baseAddr+3])&0x1F)))
        elif x & 7 == 4:
            out.write('{:02X}\n'.format( (((inputData[baseAddr])&0xE0)<<1) | ((inputData[baseAddr+4])&0x3F)))
        elif x & 7 == 5:
            out.write('{:02X}\n'.format( (((inputData[baseAddr+1])&0xE0)<<1) | ((inputData[baseAddr+5])&0x3F)))
        elif x & 7 == 6:
            out.write('{:02X}\n'.format( (((inputData[baseAddr+2])&0xE0)<<1) | ((inputData[baseAddr+6])&0x3F)))
        elif x & 7 == 7:
            out.write('{:02X}\n'.format( (((inputData[baseAddr+3])&0xE0)<<1) | ((inputData[baseAddr+7])&0x3F)))