Example : 4 bit Ring Counter with testbench

   A ring counter is a digital circuit which consists of a series of flip flops connected together in a
feedback manner.The circuit is special type of shift register where the output of the last flipflop
is fed back to the input of first flipflop.When the circuit is reset, except one of the flipflop
output,all others are made zero. For n-flipflop ring counter we have a MOD-n counter. That
means the counter has n different states.
The circuit diagram for a 4 bit ring counter is shown below:

   I have written a VHDL code for a 4-bit ring counter which has the following states:
0001  -   0010   -  0100   -   1000 ....
The code is posted below:
library IEEE;
use IEEE.STD_LOGIC_1164.ALL;
use IEEE.NUMERIC_STD.ALL;

entity ring_counter is
port (
        DAT_O : out unsigned(3 downto 0);
        RST_I : in std_logic;
        CLK_I : in std_logic
        );
end ring_counter;

architecture Behavioral of ring_counter is

signal temp : unsigned(3 downto 0):=(others => '0');

begin

DAT_O <= temp;

process(CLK_I)
begin
    if( rising_edge(CLK_I) ) then
        if (RST_I = '1') then
            temp <= (0=> '1', others => '0');
        else
            temp(1) <= temp(0);
            temp(2) <= temp(1);
            temp(3) <= temp(2);
            temp(0) <= temp(3);
        end if;
    end if;
end process;
  
end Behavioral;

The testbench code used for testing the design is given below:

LIBRARY ieee;
USE ieee.std_logic_1164.ALL;
USE ieee.numeric_std.ALL;

ENTITY tb IS
END tb;

ARCHITECTURE behavior OF tb IS
   --Inputs
   signal RST_I : std_logic := '0';
   signal CLK_I : std_logic := '0';
    --Outputs
   signal DAT_O : unsigned(3 downto 0);
   -- Clock period definitions
   constant CLK_I_period : time := 1 ns;

BEGIN

    -- Instantiate the Unit Under Test (UUT)

   uut: entity work.ring_counter PORT MAP (
          DAT_O => DAT_O,
          RST_I => RST_I,
          CLK_I => CLK_I
        );

   -- Clock process definitions

   CLK_I_process :process
   begin
        CLK_I <= '1';
        wait for CLK_I_period/2;
        CLK_I <= '0';
        wait for CLK_I_period/2;
   end process;

   -- Stimulus process

   stim_proc: process
   begin       
         RST_I <= '1';
      wait for 2 ns;   
        RST_I <= '0';
        wait for 5 ns; 
        RST_I <= '1';
        wait for 1 ns; 
        RST_I <= '0';
      wait;
   end process;

END;

The simulation wave form is given below:

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Posted by vipin at 12:34 PM