Add an RFC for InternalPort.

Author: wanda-phi

text/0078-internal-port.md

@@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
+- Start Date: 2025-06-02
+- RFC PR: [amaranth-lang/rfcs#78](https://github.com/amaranth-lang/rfcs/pull/78)
+- Amaranth Issue: [amaranth-lang/amaranth#0000](https://github.com/amaranth-lang/amaranth/issues/0000)
+
+# Internal I/O ports
+
+## Summary
+[summary]: #summary
+
+`SimulationPort` is renamed to `InternalPort`, and using it outside of simulation is allowed.  It allows for connecting I/O port-expecting components to internal signals instead of external I/O ports.
+
+## Motivation
+[motivation]: #motivation
+
+[RFC 55](https://amaranth-lang.org/rfcs/0055-lib-io.html) has made way for a variety of reusable I/O components, capable of attaching to arbitrary `PortLike`s.  However, their reusability is limitted by requiring external ports for all of their interface.  This limitation comes up in two scenerios:
+
+1. The component is used internally, to interface with other gateware within the same design.
+2. One of the optional pins of the I/O interface is unused and should be discarded (for outputs), or tied to a constant value (for inputs).
+
+Having a way to connect such gateware to internal signals resolves both issues.  Since we already have such capability in simulation, we only need to extend it to allow synthesis usage.
+
+## Guide-level and reference-level explanation
+[guide-level-explanation]: #guide-level-explanation
+
+`lib.io.SimulationPort` is renamed to `lib.io.InternalPort`.  The old name is deprecated and will be removed in Amaranth 0.8.
+
+Use of `InternalPort` is allowed with `lib.io.Buffer` and `lib.io.FFBuffer` regardless of the platform (and bypassing the platform hooks).
+
+To simplify tying off unused input ports to constant values, `init=` keyword-only argument is added to the `InternalPort` constructor. Is is passed directly to the `init=` argument of the port's `i` signal.  It is an error to use this argument with an output-only port.
+
+## Drawbacks
+[drawbacks]: #drawbacks
+
+- more complex I/O subsystem
+- the tie-off case could be better served by other means
+
+## Rationale and alternatives
+[rationale-and-alternatives]: #rationale-and-alternatives
+
+This is a fairly simple solution leveraging existing code.  For the internal connection case, no other design is apparent.  For tie-off, there are two other possibilities:
+
+1. Have a separate `TieoffPort` class.
+
+   Such class could serve as a marker that the port output will always be discarded, or that input will always have the tieoff value, allowing for simplification in controller logic.
+
+   Further, fancy platform-specific buffer types (such as high data rate SERDES) could be trivially instantiated for tie-off ports (by simply doing nothing for discarded output, or replicating the tieoff value for input), which is not in general possible for arbitrary `InternalPort`.
+
+2. Have an out-of-band mechanism that removes the unused port from the component's signature.
+
+## Prior art
+[prior-art]: #prior-art
+
+This RFC reuses existing `SimulationPort` machinery.
+
+Passing around a triple of `(I, O, OE)` is a fairly standard way of connecting an I/O controller to other logic.
+
+## Unresolved questions
+[unresolved-questions]: #unresolved-questions
+
+- how should `DDRBuffer` interact with `InternalPort`, both in simulation and synthesis?
+
+## Future possibilities
+[future-possibilities]: #future-possibilities
+
+None.