v3.1.0-RC1

This release contains the following backward incompatible API changes:

• Refactor Annotations (#767)

If you are using your own build and execution harness that does not use one of the Driver.execute family, you may need to explicitly load annotations into memory and then set the annotations field of the optionsManager.firrtlOptions. For an example, see lines 124-125 of chisel-testers/src/main/scala/chisel3/iotesters/FirrtlTerpBackend.scala.

This release includes the following bug and typo fixes:

• Fix deprecations in tests (#762)
• Update README.md with release status and supported Verilator version. (#759)
• Fixes format strings in assertions. Fixes #540 (#542)
• Remove (possibly) extraneous aggregate() line. (#748)

This release includes the following new features:

• Performance problems with sbt 1.0.4
  • Add companion objects to macro classes (#787)
• Support zero-entry queues (but not for irrevocable) (#780)
• Make Bundle abstract (#774)
• Bump sbt to 1.1.1 (#773)
• Runtime API deprecation warnings (#761)
• Significant changes to support the ability to auto clone more data types (#723)
  • Auto Clone Bundles in Companion Objects (#788)
  • Support for inner classes, implicit parameter lists, supertypess
  • Add support for autoclonetype of bound, anonymous inner Bundles (#722)
  • Make uncloneable IO deprecated instead of error, improve error handling (#771)
  • Cloning IO with compatibility (#754)
  • Better support for autoclonetype of nested Bundles (#769)
  • Autoclonetype will clone args that are of type data (#768)
  • Change clonetype test to be autoclonetype friendly (#757)