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Gotcha: Simulation startup

A project log for DIPSY

DIY System on Chip based on FPGA, priced below 5 USD

christophChristoph 09/12/2015 at 14:424 Comments

It's very cool that xilinx give us free software (Vivado) that we can use to simulate our designs. BUT there are some gotchas. When I tried to simulate writing to/reading from RAM it seemed that nothing worked as intended, until I simulated for a longer time (> 100 ns). After skimming the datasheets, RAM usage guides, I finally opened the "Vivado Design Suite User Guide", where I found this:

"Apply stimulus data after 100ns to account for the default Global Set/Reset (GSR) pulse used in functional and timing-based simulation."

This boils down to: RTFM. Ah well...

Discussions

Yann Guidon / YGDES wrote 09/12/2015 at 19:12 point

WTF... Let me guess : no warning ?

I'll stick to the aging ProASIC3 for a little longer while, not just because I have some stock but also because I'm used to this family, I can WORK with them and they deliver what I need.

I'm excited by Antti's work and awesome results but I'm far from sold to Xilinx yet :-D I'd love to see his SF2/Igloo2 boards soon ;-)

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Christoph wrote 09/12/2015 at 22:35 point

of course no warning! Also to clarify: I use vivado only for simulation of simple circuits. Dipsy uses a lattice chip, so I can't simulate for that 

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Yann Guidon / YGDES wrote 09/13/2015 at 00:13 point

For sim I use GHDL, of course ;-)
Its VHPI interface makes it easy to add "special devices" for actual I/O, I can even map a framebuffer to my actual screen :-D and it's all under GPL license...

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Antti Lukats wrote 09/12/2015 at 15:17 point

I did use Xilinx ISE for simulation soft processors that i wanted to implement in Actel FPGA's. All the tools have their GOTCHA's !

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