Rust Is Not an HDL, So I Built a Tiny One.

Why hardware design and compiler development are more similar than they first appear.

My experience building a small HDL (Hardware Description Language) compiler in Rust.

Turning source code into hardware through parsing, ASTs, semantic analysis, and intermediate representations.

Challenges of thinking in hardware instead of software, including state, timing, and concurrency.

Design decisions, mistakes, and lessons learned while building the project.

How open-source projects such as LLVM, MLIR, CIRCT, Chisel, and RustHDL influenced the development process.

A live demonstration showing how a simple digital circuit moves through the compiler pipeline.

Practical takeaways for developers interested in compilers, systems programming, hardware tooling, and open-source development.

Understand how compiler concepts such as parsing, ASTs, semantic analysis, and code generation can be applied to hardware tooling.

Learn the key differences between software and hardware thinking, especially around state, timing, and concurrency.

See how a simple HDL compiler can be built using familiar systems programming techniques.

Gain insight into modern open-source hardware ecosystems and the tools that power them.

Walk away with practical ideas and resources for exploring compilers, hardware design, and language development projects of your own.