Simulation and Verification

[daveofny]

 I am starting an FPGA project at my company.  We have no prior experience with FPGAs.  We are getting a Xilinx Virtex-4 FX12 Mini-Module kit from Avnet that includes the EDK software.  We expect to start out with “simple” projects, like using the Avnet module itself as the basis for a microcontroller board test fixture.  Later we may use the same module to control an LCD or LED display project as an add on to an existing product.Nothing terribly sophisticated.   Perhaps FPGA is overkill, but we intend to use this as learning experience for future development where an FPGA would be more suited.  My question is, what simulation abilities does the EDK software, or the ISE “WebPack” software have ?    We may not be able to get any 3rd party simulators (or anything else that costs money) ... and if our development efforts would be significantly hampered due to lack of simulation capabilities, I want to start whining as soon as possible.   Thanks,  

[pbennett45]

I *think* webpack might include a version of ISE Simulator... but I've never used it.  If you want to do complex simulations of processor systems (you said you're using EDK) you're probably going to want modelsim, aldec or what not.  I'm partial to modelsim, but that's just cause it's what I use.  There are some opensource vhdl / verilog simulators, but none support the smart models that you'll need to simulate a processor system.

[davidch]

Webpack does come with the starter version of ISE Simulator which is only limited in the number of lines of code that it can be used to simulate.  You should also be able to get the free starter version of ModelSim XE from Xilinx, which I believe is again limited in the number of lines of code that can be simulated.

[htsvn]

Hello,

If you would like to simulate EDK based designs(Processor) then you need to use either ModelSim SE/PE or Ncsim depending on which EDK

version you are using.

For HDL based designs, you can either use ISE Simulator or MXE Starter or MXE. 

Rgds 

[briandrummond]

Simulating an EDK design in ISE simulator is a decidedly slow and painful process,

and will almost certainly exceed the limits of the ISIM Lite version in either Webpack or regular ISE.

The ISIM full version will do it, if you take the trouble to work around all the bugs and problems.

But it's definitely MUCH easier in Modelsim, and more reliable, if that is an option for you.

(Do any of the Modelsim XE versions run under Linux?)

[edv]

A few notes: 

- ModelSim XE is only offered for Windows.

- MXE does not have SmartModel support, thus will not be able to load the models for Hard IP such as the PowerPC or the Embedded PCI block. 

- EDK libs are not tested against MXE and thus successful simulation results are not guaranteed.