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Subsections

Tools Documentation, Resources and Access

This section collects information for the CAD tools used in the Xilinx EDK/ISE and ModelSim environments at the University of Toronto. There is also another section that has a number of tutorial modules intended to help the student learn the basics of the various tools.

Xilinx Online Documentation

Much information is available in the various manuals and tutorials available from Xilinx.

Complete Document Tree for ISE
The ISE 10.1 Software Manuals is a good starting point to find documentation for a specific part of the ISE design flow. Using it online does not work as it links to other documents that it cannot find. You will need to actually use this document starting in the document tree of the ISE installation.

EDK Concepts, Tools, and Techniques
This covers a lot of the basics for EDK and is probably the next place to look for how to do things after the tutorials. Lots of examples.

EDK Documentation
The latest documentation on the EDK tools, the MicroBlaze and the PowerPC processor references. Note that this does not include all of the documentation. The driver and IP cores documentation must be accessed via XPS:

Help==>EDK Online Documentation
If you are running xps remotely, this may now work. This will only work if the browser is running on the same machine as xps since it needs to access the local documentation directory.

If you don't want to run XPS to see the documentation, you can type the following link into a browser running on a machine with EDK installed to see the index page, and then follow the Documents link:

file:///INSTALL_DIR/doc/usenglish/index.htm

For example, if you are logged into and running a browser on an ECE uglies Linux machine, then you can go to

file:///cad1/Xilinx/10.1/EDK/doc/usenglish/index.htm

EDK Examples
Some examples from the Xilinx site for other boards, but could provide some useful ideas.

EDK and ISE Tutorials
More indepth tutorials from Xilinx.

Other Online Help at Xilinx
There is a database of Xilinx solution records and some interactive tools to help troubleshoot your design issues, but often it is quite effective to just use the search engine for the Xilinx web site.

Other Related Documentation

GDB GUI Interface
This is a guide to the GDB GUI used in the EDK tools. It has a link to the GDB manual.

Training Lecture (2,944,785 bytes)
These are the slides used for the Xilinx EDK workshop at UofT. They are for EDK 6.1i, but still have some relevance.

EDK Wiki at Oklahoma State
This has lots of good stuff on EDK and the related tools.

HDL Simulation using ModelSim

The ModelSim simulator is available on the ECE uglies, EECG research machines, and ECF installations that have the Xilinx tools. The Xilinx libraries have been installed on the ECE uglies and the EECG research machines, but you will have to compile the libraries yourself on the ECF machines. Check the ModelSim Module (m07) in the Modules for details on how to do this. You should use this for your Verilog/VHDL simulations. It is much more powerful than what you have been probably been using and spending some time with it will make your life much easier in the long run.

Getting Started
You will need to set up some environment variables. On the uglies you should:

% source /cad1/Xilinx/ModelSim/SOURCEME.csh

or on the EECG research machines

% source /mentor/modelsim-6.3c/CSHRC.gcc

and possibly add it to your .cshrc or equivalent to set your path automatically on startup.

On the ECF Linux machines, manually set up your environment:

% set LM_LICENSE_FILE=7326@picton.eecg.utoronto.ca

If you have a custom  /modelsim.ini file, you should also:

% set MODELSIM=$HOME/modelsim.ini

You can then start the simulator:

% vsim

which will pop up a welcome window as well as the tool. Hit the Jumpstart button and then Open Documentation. This will pop up an Acrobat reader that links to many documents. There is a link to a Tutorial that can get you started.

Information Portal
This is the Technical Resource Center for the ModelSim simulator. It includes some online demos. You will need to register and login.

Modelsim in the Xilinx Environment
Look at Module m07 in the modules section.

The LEDA HDL Linter

LEDA is a tool from Synopsys that can check your source code in many ways. For beginner HDL coders it will definitely help you to write better code. You should try to get rid of all errors and warnings before attempting anything else.

NOTE: LEDA is not yet available under Linux. We are working on it. The instructions below work on Solaris machines such as those in eecg.

After LEDA starts up, create a new project. You'll get to point it at your source files.

If you are using Verilog, you may want to specify Verilog 2001 during project creation.

LEDA is pretty intuitive as configured if you don't want to read the manual. Otherwise, look under the Help menu.

    % source /CMC/tools/synopsys/syn2004/leda/source_vrg.csh
    % leda &

Running the Xilinx and Modelsim Tools at UofT

The current versions of the tools that should be used are EDK 10.1.03i, ISE 10.1.03i and ModelSim 6.3e.

The tools are installed on the ECE uglies.

The uglies have not been set up for connecting hardware to them. If there is demand, we'll look into it, but can't promise it. It is tricky because of protection issues in Linux that aren't an issue when running Windows.

The Microprocessor Lab PCs are now too slow to run the tools natively. Instead, what you will do is start an X-server on the local PC and run the actual tools on the uglies. To download to the board, you will need to do it from the local PC and use the iMPACT tool as described in Tutorial Module m06.

The Design Centre PC's are identical to those in the Microprocessor Lab. (Note: As of January 5, 2009, this upgrade is still in progress.)

ECF installations include SF1013 Linux machines, BA1120 and BA2128 PCs and the Eng Sci machines. These machines are only at version 8.2. It is recommended that you use the uglies to access the more up-to-date 10.1 versions.

The tools can be run remotely via SSH if your local machine has an X-server running.

ECE uglies Linux machines

The tools are installed in:

/cad1/Xilinx/

To get an environment set up in which the tools will all run smoothly, you should:

source /cad1/Xilinx/10.1/settings32.csh
source /cad1/Xilinx/ModelSim/SOURCEME.csh

It is recommended to not put the above settings32.csh source script in your .cshrc files because it messes with some environment variables. You can make an alias like this:

alias xilinx "source /cad1/Xilinx/10.1/settings32.csh"
and just run the xilinx command to do the sourcing.

To include all of the ModelSim simulation libraries you should copy the following modelsim.ini file to your home directory:

/cad1/Xilinx/simlib/EDK10.1_mit_se_linux/modelsim.ini

ECF Linux machines

The tools are installed in:

/local/packages/EDK/
/local/packages/Xilinx/
/local/packages/modeltech/

To get an environment set up in which the tools will all run smoothly, you should:

source /local/packages/EDK/settings.csh
source /local/packages/Xilinx/settings.csh
set path=($path /local/packages/modeltech/bin)
set LM_LICENSE_FILE=7326@picton.eecg.utoronto.ca

Starting the Tools

If you are using scripts, then the commands should all be available now.

To start the XPS GUI, type xps at the prompt.

To start the ISE GUI, type ise at the prompt.

To start the ModelSim GUI, type vsim at the prompt.


next up previous
Next: Tutorial Modules Up: Useful EDK and Multimedia Previous: The Xilinx XUP Virtex
Paul Chow 2012-01-11