AIEHLC

App Writing and Deployment Tutorial: tutorial.md

What is the aiehlc?

AIEHLC(AIE high‑level compiler) is a lightweight, efficient high level compilation integration solution for AIE (AI Engine) applications on Versal AI Core Series. It integrates with pre-built hardware designs (PDI) to effectively decouple hardware and software application development, providing a comprehensive end-to-end deployment solution.

Key features:

Integrate and Support the Synopsys chess compiler (from the Vitis package) for kernel code compilation

It Also Integrate and Supports the opensource LLVM-AIE compiler solution for kernel compilation

Simplifies the AIE application development learning curve for rapid prototyping

AIEHLC empowers users to develop straightforward AIE applications using only the AIE driver C API, eliminating the need to learn additional domain-specific languages (DSLs). This streamlined approach target to accelerates the development process and reduces barriers to entry for AIE application development.

Architecture

What it is Not

1. It serves as a complementary solution and is not intended to replace the official AIE software application compilation tools.
2. It focuses solely on software compilation and does not function as a hardware design compilation tool.
3. It currently supports only Versal AI Core Series devices and does not provide compatibility with Ryzen AI SOCs.

What are the Limitations

Its primary goal is to help system engineers simplify the learning curve for AIE application development and enable quick prototyping. As a result, it may not be as feature-complete as the official tools available.

What are the Trade-Offs

1. The pre-built PDI (hardware design) supports only GMIO interfaces. For PLIO (FPGA) support, users must implement a customized hardware design with the appropriate PLIO logic components.

2. The pre-built hardware design (PDI) delivers adequate performance for most applications. However, for use cases requiring optimal Network-on-Chip (NOC) performance, the official Vitis hardware/software tools are recommended.

3. Users must configure routing at runtime. For Ahead-of-Time (AOT) routing support, it is recommended to utilize Vitis or AIECompiler tools instead.

Examples

source script/setup.sh
#or
source ./script/setup.sh --bsp-use-git-repo=https://path/to/aie-rt.git

source script/aiehlc.sh --runtime-source-file example/perf/aieml_perf.cc 

Using llvm-aie (experimental):

source script/setup.sh
#or
source ./script/setup.sh --bsp-use-git-repo=https://path/to/aie-rt.git

source script/aiehlc.sh --use-llvm-aie --runtime-source-file example/other/multikernel.cc

AIE2PS Compilation Support

source script/setup.sh
#or
source ./script/setup.sh --bsp-use-git-repo=https://path/to/aie-rt.git

source script/aiehlc.sh --aie-version 5 --runtime-source-file example/perf/aieml_perf.cc

PetaLinux Support

source script/setup.sh
#or
source ./script/setup.sh --bsp-use-git-repo=https://path/to/aie-rt.git

source script/aiehlc.sh --platform linux --aie-version 2 --runtime-source-file tutorial/example.cpp

Runtime Debug Level

Control runtime diagnostic verbosity from your source file using #pragma aie_debug_level:

#pragma aie_debug_level 2

__global__ void mykernel(const int32_t *A, int32_t *B) {
    // kernel code
}

int main() {
    // host code
}

Level	Behavior
0	Silent (default when pragma is absent)
1	BD tracking and IO logs
2	Full diagnostics: DMA address log, write pattern, readback

The pragma is detected during preprocessing and emits a strong symbol override of g_runtime_debug_level into the generated host.cc. The runtime in aie_runtime.c defines this variable as a weak symbol with default 0, so the linker picks the user-specified value when present.

This works for both single-tile (aiehlc) and multi-tile (tilinglinalg) compilation paths.

Compiling aiehlc (Optional)

Building aiehlc is only necessary if you intend to develop or compile aiehlc itself. If your aim is simply to use aiehlc, this step is not required.

Build Tutorial: build.md

Contributing

If you plan to contibute code then make sure you set up the clang-format pre-commit hook.

source script/precommitsetup.sh

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