Counting down from an input value in VHDL - vhdl

Question

I'm trying to assign the value of input aa to the signal t in the code below. It compiles successfully, but there is a warning:
WARNING[9]: C:/Modeltech_5.7f/examples/hassan1.vhd(14): (vcom-1013) Initial value of "t" depends on value of signal "aa".
Here is the code:
library IEEE;
use IEEE.std_logic_1164.all;
use IEEE.std_logic_unsigned.all ;
use ieee.numeric_std.all;
entity counter is
port(clk :in std_logic;
reset : in std_logic;
aa: in std_logic_vector(3 downto 0);
check : out std_logic_vector(3 downto 0));
end counter;
architecture imp of counter is
signal i:std_logic_vector(3 downto 0):="0000";
signal t:std_logic_vector(3 downto 0):=aa;
begin
process(clk)
begin
if rising_edge(clk) and (t>0) then
t<=t-1;
i<=i+1;
end if;
end process;
check<=i;
end imp;
What should I be doing in order to decrement the input 'aa' in the process? The program is meant to decrement the value at input aa to 0.

Answer 1

It looks like you are trying to implement a down-counter with a load input. In such a counter, when load_enable = '1' you should register the load input value (aa in your case) into an internal signal. When load_enable = '0', you would decrement this count value. Here is a code example that does that:
library ieee;
use ieee.std_logic_1164.all;
use ieee.numeric_std_unsigned.all;
entity down_counter is
port (
clock: in std_logic;
reset: in std_logic;
load_enable: in std_logic;
load_data: in std_logic_vector(3 downto 0);
output: out std_logic_vector(3 downto 0)
);
end;
architecture rtl of down_counter is
signal count: std_logic_vector(3 downto 0);
begin
process (clock, reset) begin
if reset then
count <= (others => '0');
elsif rising_edge(clock) then
if load_enable then
count <= load_data;
else
count <= count - 1;
end if;
end if;
end process;
output <= count;
end;
For the record, the code above can be improved, but I didn't want to throw too much stuff at once. It is probably a good idea to use an integer instead of std_logic_vector for your count signal. Also you should check if the count proceeds as you expected, since the example uses the numeric_std_unsigned package. I'd recommend that you change it to numeric_std once you understand the code completely.