Summary of SystemVerilog Extensions to Verilog
SystemVerilog adds important new constructs to Verilog-2001, including:
- New data types: byte, shortint, int, longint, bit, logic, string, chandle.
- Typedef, struct, union, tagged union, enum
- Dynamic and associative arrays; queues
- Classes
- Automatic/static specification on a per variable instance basis
- Packages and support for Compilation Units
- Extensions to Always blocks for modelling combinational, latched or clocked processes
- Jump Statements (return, break and continue)
- Extensions to fork-join, disable and wait to support dynamic processes.
- Interfaces to encapsulate communication
- Clocking blocks to support cycle-based methodologies
- Program blocks for describing tests
- Randomization and constraints for random and directed-random verification
- Procedural and concurrent assertions and Coverage for verification
- Enhancements to events and new Mailbox and Semaphore built-in classes for inter-process communication.
- The Direct Programming Interface, which allows C functions to be called directly from SystemVerilog (and vice versa) without using the PLI.
- Assertions and Coverage Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and extensions to the Verilog Procedural Interface (VPI) – details of these are outside the scope of the SystemVerilog Golden Reference Guide