VHDL: button debounce inside a Mealy State Machine

Question

Hi I'm trying to implement a mealy machine using VHDL, but I'll need to debounce the button press. My problem is I'm not sure where should I implement the debouncing. My current work is like this:

process(clk)
begin
    if(clk' event and clk = '1') then
        if rst = '1' then
            curr_state <= state0;
        else
            curr_state <= next_state;
        end if;
    end if;
end process;

process(curr_state, op1,op0,rst)  --here op1,op0 and rst are all physical buttons and I need to debounce op1 and op0
begin
    if rst = '1' then
        ...some implementation
    else
        ...implement the debounce logic first
        ...process some input
        case curr_state is
            when state0=>...implementation
            ...similar stuff
        end case; 
end process;

I'm not sure whether I'm doing in the right way or not. In the second process, should I put the rst processing like this, or should I put it inside when state0 block? Also, as the processing of debounce requires counting, do I put it outside the case block like this? Thank you!

Answer 1

I would use a completely separate block of code to debounce any button signals, allowing your state machine process to focus on just the state machine, without having to worry about anything else.

You could use a process like this to debounce the input. You could of course exchange variables for signals in this example (with associated assignment operator replacements).

process (clk)
  constant DEBOUNCE_CLK_PERIODS : integer := 256;  -- Or whatever provides enough debouncing
  variable next_button_state : std_logic := '0';  -- Or whatever your 'unpressed' state is
  variable debounce_count : integer range 0 to DEBOUNCE_CLK_PERIODS-1 := 0;
begin
  if (rising_edge(clk)) then
    if (bouncy_button_in /= next_button_state) then
      next_button_state := bouncy_button_in;
      debounce_count := 0;
    else
      if (debounce_count /= DEBOUNCE_CLK_PERIODS-1) then
        debounce_count := debounce_count + 1;
      else
        debounced_button_out <= next_button_state;
      end if;
    end if;
  end if;
end process;

Another option would be to sample the bouncy_button_in at a slow rate:

process (clk)
  constant DEBOUNCE_CLK_DIVIDER : integer := 256;
  variable debounce_count : integer range 0 to DEBOUNCE_CLK_DIVIDER-1 := 0;
begin
  if (rising_edge(clk)) then
    if (debounce_count /= DEBOUNCE_CLK_DIVIDER-1) then
      debounce_count := debounce_count + 1;
    else
      debounce_count := 0;
      debounced_button_out <= bouncy_button_in;
    end if;
  end if;
end process;

The advantage of the first method is that it will reject glitches in the input. In either case, you would use the debounced_button_out (or whatever you want to call it, perhaps rst) in your state machine, whose code then contains only the core state machine functionality.

If you wanted even more debouncing, you could use another counter to create an enable signal for the processes above, to effectively divide down the clock rate. This could be better than setting the division constant to a very high number, because you may not be able to meet timing if the counter gets beyond a certain size.

You could even create a debounce entity in a separate file, which could be instantiated for each button. It could have a generic for the constant in the above process.

There's also hardware debouncing, but I suppose that's outside the scope of this question.

Answer 2

In the second process, should I put the rst processing like this, or should I put it inside when state0 block?

Only put it in the State0 block

Also, as the processing of debounce requires counting, do I put it outside the case block like this?

Counting needs to be done in a clocked process. Since you are doing a two process statemachine, you cannot do it in the case block. I typically put these sort of resources in a separate clocked process anyway.

For states, you need: IS_0, TO_1, IS_1, TO_0.
The TO_1 and TO_0 are your transition states. I transition from TO_1 to IS_1 when I see a 1 for 16 ms. I transition from TO_0 to IS_0 when I see a 0 for 16 ms. Run your counter when you are in the TO_1 or TO_0 state. Clear your counter when you are in the IS_1 or IS_0 state.

This should get you stated.