( ELSE 06 Item 14 ) -------------------------------------------- [ 06/23/06 ]
Subject: Xilinx Webpack, Altera Quartus II, Actel Libero
FREE MILK -- The elephant-in-the-living-room that the Synplicity and the
Mentor Precision salesdroids don't like talking about is those damned RTL
synthesis tools Xilinx, Altera and Actel give away for free.
You might as well mention the tools suite by the major FPGA vendors.
Xilinx Webpack
Altera Quartus II
Actel Libero
These tools are all free and can be downloaded off the web. In the
past they were barely usable and very inferior to the major EDA vendors
tools. These days they are quite usable and can hold their own
surprisingly.
- Ron Goodstein of First Shot Logic
Xilinx Foundation is all I need at this point.
- Tom Skrzeszewski of Gennum
We recently switched from Mentor's Precision to the free WebPACK
version of Xilinx XST. Our results show that XST is just as capable
as Precision. As FPGA vendors introduce better tools at lower costs,
I wonder what the future is for Precision, Synplify, and DC-FPGA is.
Maybe that's what motivates Synplicity's Structured ASIC push.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
We are moving away from DC-FPGA due to the decreasing Xilinx support
from Synopsys. Synplify Pro is the leading contender (although I have
had very good results with the latest versions of Xilinx XST).
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
The 'free' FPGA house tools are getting better. If I was Synplicity
I'd be worried about Xilinx's XST synthesis tool. Synplify still has
all the bells and whistles for high-end design, but for many designs
the Xilinx tool will do the job just fine. Not so much an issue with
larger companies where the productivity of third party tools is
justified. But for small and start-up type companies with one FPGA
designer, why pay $$$ when you can get the job done essentially free
with the house tool. I haven't used XST personally but have spoken
to people who have used it successfully.
- Richard Hein of Agilent Technologies Canada
Synplify Pro is the one we use. Quite good. Will be trying Xilinx
Webpack also soon.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
Although we have Synopsys DC, we use Synplify Pro for FPGA work. People
here seem to think it's simpler, easier to use, and gets the job done.
We've never tried Mentor FPGA tools, or DC-FPGA, and we don't believe
free stuff works very well.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
We used to have Synplify in our Altera flow, but there were some issues
with Synplify and Quartus-II passing information (timing constraints).
This was mostly due to unsupported concepts between the two tools, and
that we had multiple clock domains. Then, when Quartus 4.2 came out, it
quickly became apparent that Altera had raised the bar. We dropped
Synplify from our flow and have been stand-alone with Quartus-II ever
since. Quartus-II is now a very solid tool with a great TCL-scripting
flow for those coming from an ASIC background. And the Linux version
rocks in terms of performance. Also, the 'design space explorer'
toolset that comes with Quartus-II is invaluable. It does not get much
easier than this in terms of finding the optimal 'settings' for your
design.
We 'trialed' Xilinx's ISE, and yes, it still is the 800-lb. gui-based
gorilla. What surprised me was the lack of a TCL-API, or any other
scripting language support for that matter. With Altera, we have a
rock-solid, repeatable flow (TCL-script) that is push-button for
existing designs. So, for us, minor tweaks are just as 'routine' as
if you were running an ASIC flow with a new set of RTL. For now, I am
of the impression that Altera is a step or two ahead in 'ease of use'
and Xilinx better step it up. A TCL-API is a must.
To be fair to Synplicity, I do have to say we were using their baseline
Synplify, so there may be more there that we simply did not use.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
We find Synplify good for synthesis. Haven't tried Mentor's tools. The
main problem we currently have with FPGA tools is with the downstream
Xilinx tools. The downstream Xilinx tools often don't work together as
advertised. There are no other downstream tool options that I know of
to replace the Xilinx tools. (Please tell me if there is!)
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
Xilinx Webpack is equally good as Synplify Pro.
These look to be good, but when the final call has to be made to use
them they just don't happen.
- Rahul Khinvasara of Nevis Networks
Synplify Pro is really fast and produces good results as compared to
Mentor Precision. Rather expensive though. I find that the FPGA vendor
tools aren't that bad either. Xilinx XST is pretty close in terms of
performance and I am using it as my primary synthesis tool now.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
If it ain't free, I probably can't afford it. The FPGA vendors have to
bundle the cost of tools into the cost of chips. (I have used Xilinx
and Lattice.) Having said that, I generally like these tools but wish
that they paid more attention to the issue of building test vectors.
It does me little good if designing the chip is fairly easy but
designing the test vectors is very difficult.
One last thing: I don't ever use the built-in Verilog editors. I always
wind up making some kind of template, then editing it using my favorite
editor, then importing it into the FPGA place-and-route tool. Anybody
who uses a strange (non-ASCII) format for the Verilog has not only lost
a friend, but has also made their tool semi-useless.
- Dave Chapman of Gold Mountain
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