FPGA Central

Hello,

Most books on digital design discuss Gray codes. However, most of the
focus is on generating these codes, rather than detailing their uses.

I read the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_code,
but it doesn't provide enough in-depth information of the uses of Gray
code in hardware.

I know Gray codes are used for:

1) Encoding state machine states. Why is it an advantage to use Gray
codes here ?
2) Async FIFO addressing between clock domains. Could anyone elaborate
on this ?
3) Error correction in digital communications. Again, I'd love to hear
some more details about this.

In general, what are the other uses of these codes? When was the last
time you needed Gray codes in your design and for what purpose ?

R

On Sep 10, 10:55 pm, richard.melik...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Most books on digital design discuss Gray codes. However, most of the
> focus is on generating these codes, rather than detailing their uses.
>
> I read the Wikipedia article:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_code,
> but it doesn't provide enough in-depth information of the uses of Gray
> code in hardware.
>
Binary-coded counter sequences often change multiple bits on one count
transition. That can (will) lead to decoding glitches, especially when
counter values are compared for identity.
Gray-coded count sequences always change one, and only one, bit on
each transition. Comparing two such counters for identity will thus
never generate a decoding glitch.
That is the reason for Gray codes counters in FIFO addressing, where
FULL and EMPTYis established by comparing two asynchronously clocked
counters for identity. Gray code addressing is a must for asynchronous
FIFOs..

The "one bit change per transition" advantage occurs only in counters,
or under other very restrictive circumstances. I do not see an
advantage in general state machines, where sequences are not as
predictable.

Gray-coded counters use on average half the number of transitions,
compared to binary counters. That's a dynamic power advantage.

And yes, Gray is spelled with an a, since it is named for its
inventor.

Anybody else have any comments?
Peter Alfke

>

On Mon, 10 Sep 2007 23:16:48 -0700, Peter Alfke <[email protected]>
wrote:

><snip>
>And yes, Gray is spelled with an a, since it is named for its
>inventor.
><snip>

Gray codes were discovered by the French engineer, Emile Baudot, but
named after Frank Gray, a Bell Labs researcher, who patented their
general application in 1953 (at a time when, I suspect, when Bell Labs
folks were busy patenting many other things they didn't invent.)

Jon

[email protected] wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Most books on digital design discuss Gray codes. However, most of the
> focus is on generating these codes, rather than detailing their uses.
>
> I read the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_code,
> but it doesn't provide enough in-depth information of the uses of Gray
> code in hardware.
>
> I know Gray codes are used for:
>
> 1) Encoding state machine states. Why is it an advantage to use Gray
> codes here ?

It depends on the state machine. One's with complex state-state jumps,
will find it hard to follow a Gray pattern, but if the state engine
is Spin-Phase-Sync in nature (ie simple circular states, with 'waits'
and decodes ), then Gray can work well.


<snip>
> In general, what are the other uses of these codes? When was the last
> time you needed Gray codes in your design and for what purpose ?

Gray codes are also common in Absolute Rotary encoders.
You could also argue that quadrature encoders, and Stepper Motor
drive, are special 2 bit cases of Gray counters.

-jg

On Mon, 10 Sep 2007 23:16:48 -0700, Peter Alfke <[email protected]>
wrote:

>On Sep 10, 10:55 pm, richard.melik...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> Most books on digital design discuss Gray codes. However, most of the
>> focus is on generating these codes, rather than detailing their uses.
>>
>> I read the Wikipedia article:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_code,
>> but it doesn't provide enough in-depth information of the uses of Gray
>> code in hardware.
>>
>Binary-coded counter sequences often change multiple bits on one count
>transition. That can (will) lead to decoding glitches, especially when
>counter values are compared for identity.
>Gray-coded count sequences always change one, and only one, bit on
>each transition. Comparing two such counters for identity will thus
>never generate a decoding glitch.
>That is the reason for Gray codes counters in FIFO addressing, where
>FULL and EMPTYis established by comparing two asynchronously clocked
>counters for identity. Gray code addressing is a must for asynchronous
>FIFOs..
>
>The "one bit change per transition" advantage occurs only in counters,
>or under other very restrictive circumstances. I do not see an
>advantage in general state machines, where sequences are not as
>predictable.
>
>Gray-coded counters use on average half the number of transitions,
>compared to binary counters. That's a dynamic power advantage.
>
>And yes, Gray is spelled with an a, since it is named for its
>inventor.
>
>Anybody else have any comments?


One typical use of this code is fotary encoders. The discs inside them
are gray-encoded, so they are more rigid, and the encoder output is
less glitchy.

Zara

<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected] oups.com...
> Hello,
>
> Most books on digital design discuss Gray codes. However, most of the
> focus is on generating these codes, rather than detailing their uses.
>
> I read the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_code,
> but it doesn't provide enough in-depth information of the uses of Gray
> code in hardware.
>
> I know Gray codes are used for:
>
> 1) Encoding state machine states. Why is it an advantage to use Gray
> codes here ?
> 2) Async FIFO addressing between clock domains. Could anyone elaborate
> on this ?
> 3) Error correction in digital communications. Again, I'd love to hear
> some more details about this.
>
> In general, what are the other uses of these codes? When was the last
> time you needed Gray codes in your design and for what purpose ?
>
> R
>


We had four output pins. My software was dieing somewhere round its polling
loop,so at each block entry, I changed one of the four bits. Guaranteed the
'scope had the right picture.

On Tue, 11 Sep 2007 05:55:24 -0000, [email protected] wrote:

>Hello,
>
>Most books on digital design discuss Gray codes. However, most of the
>focus is on generating these codes, rather than detailing their uses.
>
>I read the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_code,
>but it doesn't provide enough in-depth information of the uses of Gray
>code in hardware.
>
>I know Gray codes are used for:
>
>1) Encoding state machine states. Why is it an advantage to use Gray
>codes here ?

I haven't read the wiki page, so I don't have the fuller context for
the phrase you quote here. But its first patenting by Frank Gray in
1953 was for shaft encoders. Emile Baudot discovered the idea much
earlier, and certainly used it in 1878 in telegraphy, but Gray's
patent application (1947?) said that his patented code had "as yet no
recognized name." So that was that.

In the case of shaft encoders (or actually anything trying to provide
angular position information), it's a big help. Things wear and get
old, bits of metal flake off or get cruddy, the contacts aren't evenly
loaded, someone is turning the handle by hand, let alone any
manufacturing tolerances in building the unit. By Gray coding, you
can avoid the confluence of where several contact conditions change at
once to represent what is really just a rather minor rotational
change. The Gray code only has at most nearby contact change at any
angular position. So it either changes, or it doesn't. And it if
changes, it still only means a small angular difference, so if it's no
longer perfect it's a smaller harm to what is going on than if this
had been encoded other ways.

>2) Async FIFO addressing between clock domains. Could anyone elaborate
>on this ?

I don't know, not having worried about this. But I assume this refers
to, in saying 'async', that the arrival times of different signals
aren't necessarily exactly the same and if you have some device
monitoring an encoded input and taking some action on that basis, it
would be better that as each bit arrives that the functional change is
to a "nearby" function (more gradual-appearing in some way.) But this
is just a random guess from me.

>3) Error correction in digital communications. Again, I'd love to hear
>some more details about this.

Now, that is actually a very interesting area. Since I have your
interest.....

Let's look at the simple case of just two binary bits:

Bin Gray
00 00
01 01
10 11
11 10

As you know already, the Gray codes only have one bit changing between
adjacent entries (or wrapping back to the top from the bottom.)

However, this isn't the only two bit Gray code. There are seven
others. Here's another one just as "Gray" as the one above:

Bin Gray
00 11
01 10
10 00
11 01

Same thing, really. I just inverted the bits.

But let's imagine we want to "visualize" the way to find all possible
Gray coding sequences. To do that, imagine a 2D square. Place the
"00" symbol at one vertex. Place "01" and "10" at the two vertices
which are directly connected to that vertex. Now place "11" at the
diagonally opposite corner. Now, that places all four possibilities,
but does so in a particular fashion. From this square:

00 ----- 01
| |
| |
| |
10 ----- 11

it's easy to see that to produce all eight possible Gray code
sequences for two binary bits, you just select any starting vertex and
then go either clockwise or counterclockwise around the square,
listing the visited corners out, until you get back to the original
corner. Since you have two directions to travel in and four possible
starting points, you should see that there are exactly eight possible
Gray code arrangements for two bits -- each equally valid.

For three bits, it gets a little more interesting. But by extension,
it's just a cube we need. Now you put "000" on one of the corners.
Then place "001", "010" and "100" on the vertices which follow
directly along one of the three edges leaving that corner. You can
finish up the rest by keeping in mind that moving along an edge can
only allow one bit to change in the vertex you then arrive at, from
the one you left to get there. The cube might look like:

100 ----- 101
/| /|
/ | / |
/ | / |
000 ----- 001 |
| | | |
| 110 ---|--111
| / | /
| / | /
|/ |/
010 ----- 011

Now if you place your mental finger at some starting vertex and then
imagine trying to trace out all possible paths that will touch each
other vertex exactly once and then bring you back to the original
vertex, you will find that the number of possible paths is
3*2*(1*2+1*1) or 18. And that's just for one vertex selected at
random. Since there are 8 of them, the total is then 8*18 or 144
possible 3-bit gray code sequences.

All these different paths are called Hamiltonian "walks" or "cycles."
In general, any particular N-bit Gray code sequence corresponds to one
of the many possible Hamiltonian cycles on the corresponding
N-dimensional hypercube. If you have any object with (m) vertices in
N-d space, the general problem of devising a path that visits every
vertex once and only once is called the Hamiltonian circuit problem
(after William Rowan Hamilton, who studied the problem on the vertices
of a dodecahedron.) Of course, Gray codes are concerned with a
special case, that of N-dimensional hypercubes, and not things like
dodecahedrons. But the idea is similar and Gray codes are Hamiltonian
cycles explicitly dealing with hypercubes.

Since you asked about error correction and digital coding, this then
brings me to the idea of a Hamming distance of "1." A Hamming
distance of 1 would be the distance between the symbol "000" and
symbol "001" or "010" or "100" on this cube. In other words, only
requiring the traversal of one edge on a Gray coded n-dim hypercube.

I was going to go on a bit, but I decided to see if there was a Wiki
on the subject of Hamming distance and there was! In fact, it
includes the darned cube I cobbled up above (kind of.) So that is
even better. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamming_distance

If you imagine the Hamming distance as defined there, and let's say
you have

For error detection, one possibility (when single-bit errors are
pretty likely) of what you'd like to do is to have a "space" (one of
these vast N-Dim hypercube things) that is larger than your need of
valid symbols. For example, you might need to represent 0-999 and
decide to use 16 bits for this, so your hypercube is a 16-dimensional
monstrosity, but basically a "Gray coded" hypercube. What you want
then is to distribute your valid symbols throughout the vertices in
such a way as to maximize the Hamming distance between each of them.
That way, it's less likely that a single bit error will be detected as
valid. In fact, if the Hamming distance is at least 2 between any two
of your valid symbols, a single bit error cannot "reach" a valid
symbol so you will catch the error.

There are many other ways this gets used, by the way. And it isn't
all that hard to "see" this.

You may have heard of Hamming error correction codes. It's the idea
behind ECC memory, for example, where it not only detects, but also
corrects, all single-bit errors -- and it may detect many multi-bit
errors. Anyway, let's take a very simple example of how they work.

The Hamming [4,7] code.

Remember the Venn diagram?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram

The one with three overlapping circles, which overlap enough so that
there is a small region in the center which is common to all three
circles? (Check out the Wiki page, there above.) But here is my dumb
ASCII of it:

aaaaa ccccc
aaa aaa ccc ccc
aa ** cc
a c a c
a c a c
a c 6 a c
a 1 c a 2 c
a c eeeee a c
a c eee eeea c
a *e *e c
a ec a e c
a e c 7 a e c
a e c a e c
a e c a e c
a e c a e c
a e 4 c a 5 ec
a* ** c*
eaaa aaa ccc ccc e
e aaaaa ccccc e
e e
e e
e 3 e
e e
ee ee
eee eee
eeeee

The overlapping circles are lettered with 'a', 'c', and 'e'. In their
overlapping arrangement, they create 7 regions. I've numbered those
from 1 to 7, as you can see.

Now, we assign one bit of a seven-bit word to each of these regions.
The data bits we want to send (or receive) will be placed into the
four regions numbered 4, 5, 6, and 7. Four data bits, total. The
error correction bits will be assigned to regions 1, 2, and 3. Those
values will be calculated from the data bits.

How to calculate them? First place your data bits into the four
regions, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Then consider the sum of those data bits
which are in circle 'a' (regions 4, 6, and 7) and force the bit in
region 1 to be a parity bit (even or odd, your choice.) So the bit
placed into region 1 is determined. Now do the same for the bits in
circle 'c' (regions 2, 6, and 7) and force the bit in region 2 to be a
parity bit for those, as well. Then do the same for circle 'e'
(regions 4, 5, and 7) and compute that parity for region 3. All 7
bits are now determined.

Keep in mind that regions 1, 2, and 3 are only one parity bit, so if
you get a carry in adding up the regions just toss the carry away.

Now, you send these seven bits to a receiver somewhere. Imagine there
is a 1 bit error in any of these. If the one bit error occurs in
region 7 (a data bit), then all three checksums or outer region data
bits will fail. You see that? All three included region 7 in
calculating their parity value, so if region 7 gets hit and has an
error, then all three of the parity bits will be wrong. So if the
receiver sees all three parity values are wrong, it knows that the bit
in region 7 was incorrectly received. Imagine an error in the bit for
region 4 happens. Now, the parity in regions 1 and 3 go wrong. So
the receiver can tell that region 4 must have been received in error.
Imagine that an error is in the bit for region 2. (That's a parity
bit and not data, at all.) In this case, both of the other parity
regions, 1 and 3, are still correct. So that means it was just a
parity bit that went wrong. The table looks like:

Bit Error Region Parity 1 Parity 2 Parity 3
none ok ok ok
1 err ok ok
2 ok err ok
3 ok ok err
4 err ok err
5 ok err err
6 err err ok
7 err err err

As you can see, the receiver has enough information to detect AND
correct any single-bit error that may take place.

This idea can easily be expanded into more Hamming codes, such as the
[11,15] or [26,31], or [57,63] codes. For example, 57 data bits can
be sent using 63 bits total (only 6 correction/detection bits.)

There's a great chapter on Gray code in Martin Gardner's book,
"Knotted Doughnuts" (Freeman, 1986.) The chapter is called, "The
Binary Gray Code."

On p. 13, Gardner writes:

"A Gray code for three-digit binary numbers had 2^3 = 8 numbers that
can be placed on the corners of a cube. Adjacent corners have binary
triplets that differ in only one place. Any continuous path that
visits every corner once only generates a Gray code. For example, the
path shown by the dashed line starting at 000 produces 000, 001, 011,
101, 100. [Note: his figure of the cube has these numbers on the
corners.] This is a cyclic code because the path can return from 100
to 000 in one step. Such paths are called Hamiltonian paths after the
Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton. As the reader has
probably guessed, binary Gray codes correspond to Hamiltonian paths on
the cubes of n dimensions."

....and he goes on to say later...

"Gray codes for other bases correspond to Hamiltonian paths on more
complicated n-dimensional graphs. The number of Gray codes for any
base increases explosively as the number of digits increases. The
number of Gray codes, even for the binary system, is known for four or
fewer digits."

Gardner had written this in 1976 in his *Scientific American*
"Mathematical Games" column. For publication in this book he added
several pages of further developments. He also provides an extensive
bibliography on the Gray codes and related ideas. As of 1986 the 5-d
cube Hamiltonian path numbers were known, and thus the number of 5-bit
Gray codes.

A table for these are as follows:

N Vertices Distinct paths Total
----------------------------------------------------------
2 2^2 (4) 2 8
3 2^3 (8) 18 144
4 2^4 (16) 5712 91392
5 2^5 (32) 5,859,364,320 187,499,638,240

Gardner cites a reference for this data:

"At the 1980 IEEE International Conference on Circuits and Computers,
at Port Chester, N.Y., a paper was presented titled 'Gray Codes:
Improved Upper bounds and Statistical Estimates for n > 4 bits,' and
published in 1983. The authors were Jerry Silverman, Virgil E. Vickers
and John L. Sampson, electrical engineers at the Rome Air Development
Center, Hanscom Air Force Base, Chicopee, Mass."

There's many other closely related studies, such as "sphere packing"
in N-dimensions. You might want to look up a paper by Marcel Golay,
from 1949. His coding is particularly useful for noisy environments
and places a smaller set of valid Golay coded symbols in a much larger
symbol space, with the Hamming distance between each of them both
relatively uniform and as large as uniformly possible.

I believe that Hamming and Shannon worked close by each other for some
years. You might also want to read C. E. Shannon's, "A Mathematical
Theory of Communication," The Bell System Technical Journal, July and
October of 1948. It's really a fairly easy to read and gives you a
nifty segue as well into Boltzmann's discussion on the relationship of
temperature and energy and the concept of entropy. (Another guy,
Weaver, later pressed Shannon to reach for a wider audience and
together they did a paper in 1949.)

>In general, what are the other uses of these codes? When was the last
>time you needed Gray codes in your design and for what purpose ?

That's a big question. Start with the above and see if that helps.

Jon

On Tue, 11 Sep 2007 11:42:46 +0200, David Brown
<[email protected]> wrote:

><snip>
>I hope you copied-and-pasted a lot of that post rather than writing it
>all yourself!
><snip>

Nah, I type fast. The words are mine except what I quoted from
Gardner. A small portion of it does come from an earlier post I'd
written, though.

Jon

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

<snip huge and informative post>

I hope you copied-and-pasted a lot of that post rather than writing it
all yourself!

I hadn't thought about using Gray code for communication, but it's a
really smart idea. Supposing you want to send 10-bit data within a
16-bit message. All you need to do to send data "x" is to calculate:

y = toGray16(x << 6)

At the other side, you receive "z". To get your best estimate for the
original "x", you calculate:

x' = (fromGray16(z) + 0x1f) >> 6
xe = z - (x1' << 6)

xe is the Hamming distance between the sent data (assuming the
corruption is not too bad, obviously) and the received data, while x' is
the nearest correct code.

mvh.,

David

On Tue, 11 Sep 2007 01:52:08 -0700, Jonathan Kirwan
<[email protected]> wrote:

>The Gray code only has at most nearby contact change at any
>angular position.

I meant, "The Gray code only has at most _one_ nearby contact change
at any angular position."

Jon

On Sep 11, 4:52 pm, Jonathan Kirwan <jkir...@easystreet.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Sep 2007 05:55:24 -0000, richard.melik...@gmail.com wrote:
> >Hello,
>
> >Most books on digital design discuss Gray codes. However, most of the
> >focus is on generating these codes, rather than detailing their uses.
> <snip>
> >2) Async FIFO addressing between clock domains. Could anyone elaborate
> >on this ?
>
> I don't know, not having worried about this. But I assume this refers
> to, in saying 'async', that the arrival times of different signals
> aren't necessarily exactly the same and if you have some device
> monitoring an encoded input and taking some action on that basis, it
> would be better that as each bit arrives that the functional change is
> to a "nearby" function (more gradual-appearing in some way.) But this
> is just a random guess from me.
>

This technique is useful if you access RAM/ROM linearly as a FIFO. Say
for example a video frame buffer. Using gray code instead of straight
low to high addressing allows you to stream the data into or out of
memory without using a latch. This saves one clock cycle per unit data
but considering that data read/write with a latch is two clock cycles
(1.change address, 2.latch data) it achieves 100% improvement in
throughput.

Hi Peter, thanks for replying. My comments below...

> Binary-coded counter sequences often change multiple bits on one count
> transition. That can (will) lead to decoding glitches, especially when
> counter values are compared for identity.

What do you mean by "compared for identity" - do you mean equality of
two multi-bit registers ?

Also, what kind of glitches are you referring to here ? Logic
hazards ?

> Gray-coded count sequences always change one, and only one, bit on
> each transition. Comparing two such counters for identity will thus
> never generate a decoding glitch.
> That is the reason for Gray codes counters in FIFO addressing, where
> FULL and EMPTYis established by comparing two asynchronously clocked
> counters for identity. Gray code addressing is a must for asynchronous
> FIFOs..
>

Why can't the values just be synchronized (double FF) between the
domains with a handshake and solve the problem of glitches in the
first place ?

> The "one bit change per transition" advantage occurs only in counters,
> or under other very restrictive circumstances. I do not see an
> advantage in general state machines, where sequences are not as
> predictable.

So why do all synthesis tools propose "gray code" as one of the
encodings of state machines ?

R

> It depends on the state machine. One's with complex state-state jumps,
> will find it hard to follow a Gray pattern, but if the state engine
> is Spin-Phase-Sync in nature (ie simple circular states, with 'waits'
> and decodes ), then Gray can work well.
>

What do you mean "can work well". Won't normal encoding work just as
well ? I can see an advantage in one-hot encoding, but not Gray.

> <snip>
>
> > In general, what are the other uses of these codes? When was the last
> > time you needed Gray codes in your design and for what purpose ?
>
> Gray codes are also common in Absolute Rotary encoders.
> You could also argue that quadrature encoders, and Stepper Motor
> drive, are special 2 bit cases of Gray counters.
>

Could you elaborate on this ?

Thanks for the information, btw

R

[email protected] wrote:
>>It depends on the state machine. One's with complex state-state jumps,
>>will find it hard to follow a Gray pattern, but if the state engine
>>is Spin-Phase-Sync in nature (ie simple circular states, with 'waits'
>>and decodes ), then Gray can work well.
>>
>
>
> What do you mean "can work well". Won't normal encoding work just as
> well ? I can see an advantage in one-hot encoding, but not Gray.

Gray is useful if you need to decode the states, and also if the
state-next terms are async, as you have just ONE dependant FF active,
so you cannot get a false state, due to aperture effects.
With one-hot, you must ensure trigger signals are fully sync.



>
>><snip>
>>
>>>In general, what are the other uses of these codes? When was the last
>>>time you needed Gray codes in your design and for what purpose ?
>>
>>Gray codes are also common in Absolute Rotary encoders.
>>You could also argue that quadrature encoders, and Stepper Motor
>>drive, are special 2 bit cases of Gray counters.
>>
>
>
> Could you elaborate on this ?
On what,the Absolute encoder use, or the Quadrature == 2 bit gray ?
Just draw a 2 bit gray counter, and then make it UpDown, and you
will see the result.

-jg

Jonathan,

Wow - an amazing post, very informative. Personally I'm familiar with
most of this material, but it will definitely serve as a great
placeholder for searches on the subject. Google is great in indexing
such information reservoirs.

Anyway, although the topic of error correction codes using Hamming
distances is enlightening, I don't see how Gray codes help. Maybe it's
just morning dense-ness, but it appears that these topics are
tangential.

> >In general, what are the other uses of these codes? When was the last
> >time you needed Gray codes in your design and for what purpose ?
>
> That's a big question. Start with the above and see if that helps.

I didn't mean it as a big question. It's quite simple, really - when
was the last time *you* Jonathan (and other readers interested in
sharing) used Gray codes in digital design, either in coding logic or
software ?

TIA
R

[email protected] wrote:

> Hi Peter, thanks for replying. My comments below...
>
>
>>Binary-coded counter sequences often change multiple bits on one count
>>transition. That can (will) lead to decoding glitches, especially when
>>counter values are compared for identity.
>
>
> What do you mean by "compared for identity" - do you mean equality of
> two multi-bit registers ?

yes,

> Also, what kind of glitches are you referring to here ? Logic
> hazards ?
>
>
>>Gray-coded count sequences always change one, and only one, bit on
>>each transition. Comparing two such counters for identity will thus
>>never generate a decoding glitch.
>>That is the reason for Gray codes counters in FIFO addressing, where
>>FULL and EMPTYis established by comparing two asynchronously clocked
>>counters for identity. Gray code addressing is a must for asynchronous
>>FIFOs..
>>
>
>
> Why can't the values just be synchronized (double FF) between the
> domains with a handshake and solve the problem of glitches in the
> first place ?

They could be, but that would add latencies to the FIFO that
are best avoided. ie why compromise the operation, when a Gray
Code design will work better ?

-jg

> This technique is useful if you access RAM/ROM linearly as a FIFO. Say
> for example a video frame buffer. Using gray code instead of straight
> low to high addressing allows you to stream the data into or out of
> memory without using a latch.

Could you elaborate on this, please - how does it avoid a latch, and
where does the latch come from anyway in straight addressing ?

R

On Tue, 11 Sep 2007 10:37:30 -0000, [email protected] wrote:

><snip>
>> That's a big question. Start with the above and see if that helps.
>
>I didn't mean it as a big question. It's quite simple, really - when
>was the last time *you* Jonathan (and other readers interested in
>sharing) used Gray codes in digital design, either in coding logic or
>software ?

2005, for an EEPROM counter.

Jon

>> Why can't the values just be synchronized (double FF) between the
>> domains with a handshake and solve the problem of glitches in the
>> first place ?
>
>They could be, but that would add latencies to the FIFO that
>are best avoided. ie why compromise the operation, when a Gray
>Code design will work better ?

It's more complicated than that. Running a multi-bit value
through a synchronizer doesn't work if more than one bit changes.
Some of the bits might get there in time when others don't.

If the data changes from 000 to 111, you might see
001, 010, 100, 011, 101, or 110 for a cycle before
it settles. (That's assuming it was stable at 000
for several cycles and then stays at 111 for several
cycles.)

--
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam.

> >They could be, but that would add latencies to the FIFO that
> >are best avoided. ie why compromise the operation, when a Gray
> >Code design will work better ?
>
> It's more complicated than that. Running a multi-bit value
> through a synchronizer doesn't work if more than one bit changes.
> Some of the bits might get there in time when others don't.
>
> If the data changes from 000 to 111, you might see
> 001, 010, 100, 011, 101, or 110 for a cycle before
> it settles. (That's assuming it was stable at 000
> for several cycles and then stays at 111 for several
> cycles.)

Ah - this is a most important point, I think. So, you imply that if I
want to share a counter between two clock domains, I can so a simple
double FF synchronization on it if it's encoded in Gray, whilst for a
normal counter I need a handshake protocol with a synchronized control
signal ?
I think I understand how this can make things faster.

R

> > What do you mean "can work well". Won't normal encoding work just as
> > well ? I can see an advantage in one-hot encoding, but not Gray.
>
> Gray is useful if you need to decode the states,

What does this mean ? How is Gray better than regular binary when you
need to decode the states ?

R

> >I didn't mean it as a big question. It's quite simple, really - when
> >was the last time *you* Jonathan (and other readers interested in
> >sharing) used Gray codes in digital design, either in coding logic or
> >software ?
>
> 2005, for an EEPROM counter.
>

An internal address counter for access to the EEPROM ? Why did you
choose Gray encoding in this case ?

R

<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected] oups.com...
>> This technique is useful if you access RAM/ROM linearly as a FIFO. Say
>> for example a video frame buffer. Using gray code instead of straight
>> low to high addressing allows you to stream the data into or out of
>> memory without using a latch.
>
> Could you elaborate on this, please - how does it avoid a latch, and
> where does the latch come from anyway in straight addressing ?
> R

You use the change in address bit to 'register' the data into the
memory rather than a write strobe.

You can then write once per master clock cycle instead of having to have
two cycles the first with the write strobe low, the next high (typically).

I thought about trying this on an external SRAM for a project a couple
of years ago but couldn't find any data sheets confirming this is a
valid way of writing data to an SRAM and did't have time to experiment
to test it.


Nial

[email protected] wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Most books on digital design discuss Gray codes. However, most of the
> focus is on generating these codes, rather than detailing their uses.
>
> I read the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_code,
> but it doesn't provide enough in-depth information of the uses of Gray
> code in hardware.
>
> I know Gray codes are used for:
>
> 1) Encoding state machine states. Why is it an advantage to use Gray
> codes here ?
> 2) Async FIFO addressing between clock domains. Could anyone elaborate
> on this ?
> 3) Error correction in digital communications. Again, I'd love to hear
> some more details about this.
>
> In general, what are the other uses of these codes? When was the last
> time you needed Gray codes in your design and for what purpose ?
>
> R

My most recent use: a combinatorial divide-by-8 counter for a clock that
might be too fast to go through Flops but able to have predictable
timing through three LUTs. I used it as a prescaler for the output of a
ring oscillator.

Three 4-input LUTs take in one clock and the three values to pass the
clock - normal or inverted as necessary - as the active "count up" bit.
It was a nifty little application.

- John_H

On Sep 11, 4:42 am, David Brown <da...@westcontrol.removethisbit.com>
wrote:
> Jonathan Kirwan wrote:
>
> <snip huge and informative post>
>
> I hope you copied-and-pasted a lot of that post rather than writing it
> all yourself!
>
> I hadn't thought about using Gray code for communication, but it's a
> really smart idea. Supposing you want to send 10-bit data within a
> 16-bit message. All you need to do to send data "x" is to calculate:
>
> y = toGray16(x << 6)
>
> At the other side, you receive "z". To get your best estimate for the
> original "x", you calculate:
>
> x' = (fromGray16(z) + 0x1f) >> 6
> xe = z - (x1' << 6)
>
> xe is the Hamming distance between the sent data (assuming the
> corruption is not too bad, obviously) and the received data, while x' is
> the nearest correct code.
>
> mvh.,
>
> David

Does that work? While adjacent binary codes are always represented by
single bit differences in gray, the converse is not true; single bit
changes in gray are not necessarily adjacent codes in binary.

Also, n-count changes in binary code are not necessarily represented
by n-bit changes in gray.

Andy