Blocking and Non-blocking Statements

In Hardware description languages, blocking and non-blocking statements are used to generate either sequential or combinational logic. As the name suggests, a blocking statement blocks the next statement in the queue from executing until the current statement has finished execution. Contradictory to this, a non-blocking statement can execute in parallel with other non-blocking statements. Following symbols are used to denote blocking and non-blocking operations in statements.

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Blocking assignment       =

Nonblocking assignment   <=

During synthesis, a blocking statement infers a wire, while a non-blocking statement infers a latch or a register. Within an always block, blocking statements are generally used for combinational logic implementation, while non- blocking statements are used for sequential logic implementation. Though these two types of statements can be mixed within an always block, it is not advisable as there is a possibility of occuring simulation errors and unwanted latch inferences.

A simple example for the usage of blocking and non-blocking statements is given below.

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module blocking_nonblocking_assignments(

    input           clk,

    input           reset,

    input           a_in,

    input           b_in,

    output          c_out,

    output reg      d_out       

    ); 



    reg             c_temp;

    reg             d_tep;



    //blocking assignment

    always@(posedge clk) begin

        c_temp  =   a_in;       

        c_out   =   c_temp;

    end



    //non_blocking assignment

    always@(posedge clk) begin

        d_temp  <=  b_in;

        d_out   <=  b_temp;

    end



endmodule

In the above example, in the blocking assignment, the output c_out gets the value of the input a_in in the same clock cycle in which the input is sampled. That is, the statements can be assumed as being executed one after the other and hence the input a_in recieved by c_temp and then c_temp is received by the c_out. But in the non-blocking case, the output d_out gets the value of input b_in a clock cycle delayed. The statements can be assumed as being executed in parallel where the current value of b_in is given to d_temp and the current value of d_temp is given to d_out.

In practice, blocking assignments are mostly used in combinational blocks while non blocking assignments are used in sequential blocks

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//combinational block with blocking assignments

always@(*) begin

    b_out = a_in;

    c_out = d_in; 

end



//sequential block with non blocking assignments

always@(posedge clk) begin

    b_out <= a_in;

    c_out <= d_in;

end