@fabianschuiki moving this over from the previous discussion about simulation.
Since the path from FIRRTL to RTL continues to be fleshed out, do you think it makes sense to begin a pass from RTL to LLHD as the next step? I would be happy to start an initial RTL to LLHD pass along the lines of the existing FIRRTL to LLHD pass if you think that makes sense.
Yes, I think this is a great idea! Seeing how nicely FIRRTL-to-RTL progresses we should just throw out FIRRTL-to-LLHD altogether 
and stick to a FIRRTL-RTL-LLHD path.
That would be awesome! I’m currently a bit absorbed by writing my thesis, but I’d be happy to review patches and chime in with some coding effort later once the thesis nears completion.
Ok, so how does this sound: I can start by repurposing the conversion in the FIRRTLToLLHD pass into a new RTLToLLHD pass and send it for your review.
After that, it is just a matter of adding more RTL conversions as we have the need/time.
This sounds great! I’m afraid the FIRRTLToLLHD pass is very minimal at the moment but as you say we can easily cook up more and more complex use cases as we go along.