Hi Xilin, As a first time user of Xilinx ChipScope, I have many feelings about its usage.
- First of all, it is an excellent tool that help FPGA designers debug designs in the easiest way.
- It is easy for designers to change trigger data and all other things.
- Its debugging waveform windows have many things to improve, in short, its waveform window interface is bad, but I think 2 persons and half a year are enough to raise its waveform interface up to world first class.
The followings are 3 major suggestions:
- Liberate waveform window from being a child window and let it become a frame window with its independent menus and commands that can be maximized to the full screen.
It is not difficult to change, but it surely will give users more viewing area and more pleasure.
Reason: when debugging a design, designers spend most of time viewing its waveforms. Current waveform window is too small to look around. Its size is limited by its mother window.
- Currently for multiple-bit signals, a client has to do the following editing to get a bus signals(multiple-bit signals are most time viewed as a bus signal) standing beside a testing machine: a. Click the first line of the signal; b. Browse down to the last line of the signal (if it is 64-bit, a lot scroll down operations) c. Hold down the 'shift' key, then click the last line of the signal to
select all signal bits; d. Right click to pop up an operation window; e. Select Generate a new bus; f. Left click 'new bus' item in the expanded menu. then g. repeat a. to d., then click 'cut' to cut all individual signals.
If there are thousands of lines, it is not an easy job.
Suggestion: Put a new window in ChipInsert software. After user selects all trigger signals, let user decide their show options(show the multiple-bit signal as a bus, and don't have to combine them and then cut them later, data values should be shown in highest to lowest mode or reversed mode) After loading the project into ChipScope, user never has to change those signal view property any more.
Showing properties: a. Ability to shift a hex data right or left some bits to facilitate different viewing capabilities; b. Ability to show in binary, decimal, hex formats
- Cursor has big problems: Two cursors are good, but each time when user clicks on the screen, no cursor movement. It is bad for a user to click 4-5 times to select which cursor to put.
Suggestions:
- Provide two icon in command bar. User can click any one of two icons, then when user click left button, the selected cursor will be put there, no matter how many time user clicks. This way, it will relieve users 4-5 clicks to put a cursor at the designated area. It is as easy as ModelSim, but give user more freedom to select which cursor has to be selected.
The best way for an interface software designer to design a good interface is he must use it. When using it, he will find all those issues that are not friendly.
Thank you.
Weng