VHDL - How should I create a clock in a testbench?

Question

How should I create a clock in a testbench? I already have found one answer, however others on stack overflow have suggested that there are alternative or better ways of achievi

Answer 1

How to use a clock and do assertions

This example shows how to generate a clock, and give inputs and assert outputs for every cycle. A simple counter is tested here.

The key idea is that the process blocks run in parallel, so the clock is generated in parallel with the inputs and assertions.

library ieee;
use ieee.std_logic_1164.all;

entity counter_tb is
end counter_tb;

architecture behav of counter_tb is
    constant width : natural := 2;
    constant clk_period : time := 1 ns;

    signal clk : std_logic := '0';
    signal data : std_logic_vector(width-1 downto 0);
    signal count : std_logic_vector(width-1 downto 0);

    type io_t is record
        load : std_logic;
        data : std_logic_vector(width-1 downto 0);
        count : std_logic_vector(width-1 downto 0);
    end record;
    type ios_t is array (natural range <>) of io_t;
    constant ios : ios_t := (
        ('1', "00", "00"),
        ('0', "UU", "01"),
        ('0', "UU", "10"),
        ('0', "UU", "11"),

        ('1', "10", "10"),
        ('0', "UU", "11"),
        ('0', "UU", "00"),
        ('0', "UU", "01")
    );
begin
    counter_0: entity work.counter port map (clk, load, data, count);

    process
    begin
        for i in ios'range loop
            load <= ios(i).load;
            data <= ios(i).data;
            wait until falling_edge(clk);
            assert count = ios(i).count;
        end loop;
        wait;
    end process;

    process
    begin
        for i in 1 to 2 * ios'length loop
            wait for clk_period / 2;
            clk <= not clk;
        end loop;
        wait;
    end process;
end behav;

The counter would look like this:

library ieee;
use ieee.std_logic_1164.all;
use ieee.numeric_std.all; -- unsigned

entity counter is
    generic (
        width : in natural := 2
    );
    port (
        clk, load : in std_logic;
        data : in std_logic_vector(width-1 downto 0);
        count : out std_logic_vector(width-1 downto 0)
    );
end entity counter;

architecture rtl of counter is
    signal cnt : unsigned(width-1 downto 0);
begin
    process(clk) is
    begin
        if rising_edge(clk) then
            if load = '1' then
                cnt <= unsigned(data);
            else
                cnt <= cnt + 1;
            end if;
        end if;
    end process;
    count <= std_logic_vector(cnt);
end architecture rtl;

Related: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/148320/proper-clock-generation-for-vhdl-testbenches