How to prevent inferred latch and latch unsafe behavior in Verilog? - verilog

Question

I am having trouble with a specific part of my program, here in the always block:
module compare_block (clk, reset_n, result, led);
parameter data_width = 8; //width of data input including sign bit
parameter size = 1024;
input clk, reset_n;
input [(data_width+2):0] result; //from filter -- DOUBLE CHECK WIDTH
logic [(data_width):0] data_from_rom; //precalculated 1 Hz sine wave
logic [10:0] addr_to_rom;
output reg led;
reg [(data_width + 2):0] ans_sig [size-1:0];
integer i, iii, jj, j, ii;
reg ans_sig_done, filt_sig_done, comp_sig_done;
reg [(data_width+2):0] sum;
reg [data_width:0] max_val, error_val;
initial max_val='b000000000;
...
always #* begin
sum = 0;
if (ans_sig_done) begin
for (j=4; j<(size-1); j=j+2) begin
sum = sum + ans_sig[j];
if (ans_sig[j] > max_val) begin
max_val = ans_sig[j];
end else begin
max_val = max_val;
end//else
end //for
end//if
end//always
...
endmodule
Essentially, ans_sig is an array, 1024 bytes long that I want to sum into one number (sum) and eventual (not here) take the average of. While I am traversing the ans_sig array, I also want to identify the maximum value within the array (max_val), which is what the nested if-statement is doing. However I get the following severe warnings when I'm compiling in Quartus:
"Inferred latch for "max_val[8]" at compare_block.sv"
"13012 Latch compare_block:compare|max_val[8] has unsafe behavior"
"13013 Ports D and ENA on the latch are fed by the same signal compare_block: compare|LessThan473~synth" (for max_val[8])
I get all of these errors for max_val [0] through max_val [8].

Answer 1

this code represents a null-statement and actually signifies a latch rather than eliminating it:
end else begin
max_val = max_val; <<< null statement
It does not make much sense in using such statement unless you want to show that this has a latch behavior.
You initialized the max_val only once in the initial block. There for the latch behavior is an expected one: you keep max_val between multiple invocations of the sum for loop.
If this is not the case, and you need to re-calculate the max_val every time, you should initialize it in the always block same way as you do sum.
always #* begin
sum = 0;
max_val = 0;
if (ans_sig_done) begin
for (j=4; j<(size-1); j=j+2) begin
sum = sum + ans_sig[j];
if (ans_sig[j] > max_val) begin
max_val = ans_sig[j];
end
end//else
end //for
end//if
end//always
this way you will get rid of the latch.

Answer 2

If this module is for simulation purposes, perhaps you don't need to care about the warnings (I'm not pretty sure. Correct me if I'm wrong). However if it's for implementation, you'll need to use sequential logic to generate sum and max_val with ans_sig_done being the enable signal. You have 1024 11-bit long data, don't ever think about doing such a calculation with zero time consumption. Let's talk about the warnings you got. Since the always block is combinational, what do you expect when ans_sig_done is false. Combinational logic with missing branches results in latch behavior. By the way, you have a sum with the same bit width as each data inside the ans_sig array which will lead to potential data loss during calculation, and a max_val with even narrower bit width.