Never buy Altera!!!!

I personally haven't been thrilled about Altera's support. I thought Xilinx had a good first line of defence with their answer browser. Altera has started something called knowledge base but it hasn't helped me much so far. Most of my cases have been resolved by my own research. Further they have a couple of forums, the utility of which is also questionable. The only time Altera's support helps is when Altera forgets to include a key piece of information in their documentation such as an errata or help file, etc.

Nevertheless, I agree that Q2 is getting complicated enough that they need a group to answer questions and act as first line of defence. Unfortunately, so far it is hasn't been reliable.

-sanjay

I agree with the concept of "sell the support."

(Malcolm McLaren called "Step 3: Sell the Swindle.")

Anyways, they already get complaints about buggy software and lousy documentation. Hopefully, though, charging for other than web knowledgebase support weeds out the hobbyists and timewasters so the support people could arguably do a better job.

Indeed, but what's the cost of a license server crash over the weekend when you need to ship Monday morning?

-a

Figured we'd end up there sooner or later...

Theory I'm contemplating is that perhaps it's a form of vendor lock-in

- the idea being that if you've invested money into being able to do the larger devices from X or A, you won't trivially jump ship and do a project on the other just because you got a good price on parts.

The third-party ingredients idea can't be the whole story, or at least it's no excuse for the web versions of the suite being unable to target the entire range of silicon at the same level of tool functionality as is provided for the lower end parts.

You have a bit of a point, but these tools and the methodology of FPGAs are WAY too arcane for the average PIC-chip hobbyist. And, I have to say that my several experiences with Xilinx tech support have not been stellar. The last one turned up a major discrepancy between data sheet power consumption and what actually happens on the 5 V XC9500 CPLDs, and they told me flatly they would not even correct the on-line data sheets! Yes, sure, an obsolete product, but they still sell them and I'm still buying them. Most of the other times I've needed Xilinx tech support, I ended up figuring out the problem before they did - if ever.

Jon

My guess is that these complete packages DO contain some software components that can potentially be pulled out and used standalone. Some components are bought outside, like Xilinx uses ModelSim. (I don't know why anyone would WANT to use ModelSim, it seems insanely creaky and cumbersome, and I have to relearn the DAMN thing every time I use it.) But, I'm sure that it and other components could be pulled out and used separately, given the right support files and libraries. Actually, if you have the entire package with the license key, you can probably use those packages separely, too, if you know enough. So, I think it is mostly smoke - anyone who actually knows enough about the package's internals could circumvent the security anyway.

Jon

Jon, I've always rather liked modelsim (not its price!) - but I'm not defending it - I'm just curious if you know of any better solutions for simulation.

-Jeff

Absolutely! I rolled a '1' and a '3'... they're pretty small numbers? ;)

As someone elsewhere in this thread hypothesized, those numbers are questionable. But I'll retract my statement pending further evidence.

Someone else also made a good point - the 'lock-in' to a vendor due to investment in development tools. However, I'd also venture to suggest that perhaps experience with a particular vendor's silicon and tools is perhaps more valuable than a few $K???

Regards,

Actually, I have been pretty happy with Altera. I opened a few support cases on Altera's site and did receive satisfactory, timely answers.

And to be absolutely fair, I have done the same on Xilinx's site as well!

Regards,

I prefer Active-HDL, it has all of the same features as ModelSim and a much better GUI. Plus it has better options for driving signals during a quick simulation run. Although I did find a bug in a recent past version but it has been fixed in the current version. The version of ModelSim at the time didn't have the same problem.

---Matthew Hicks

While we are off topic, I find all the GUI based simulators unbearable slow to use. Icarus Verilog is free, works the same on Mac OSX, Linux, and Windows, and integrates perfectly into a Makefile driven work flow.

I can't believe the original posters childish rant could span such a long thread! It must be a slow week. In my experience both A and X are fine companies though neither is perfect.

Tommy

Modelsim is hardly tied to a GUI - I use a makefile driven flow (Modelsim even has a command for making a makefile!), and often use the simulator in "text-mode" as well.

Cheers, Martin

I have both Modelsim and Aldec's ActiveHDL. I much prefer Aldec's simulator over Modelsim. The UI is more intuitive and much easier to use, Aldec supports hooks into matlab for testbenches and simulation of edif netlists. It also has a design entry tool that is far above the text editor in Modelsim. I've also found tech support for Aldec to be much more responsive, often having a fix the next day (I've been an Aldec user now for about 10 years; early versions had a number of bugs, but they were always good at getting a patch made quickly) Tech support is especially good if you use the magic words: "runs fine in modelsim". If you haven't already, please check out the Aldec tools, and if they ask where you heard of them feel free to drop my name.

The incremental cost to make more software is almost zero. (That's not true if you use a package with licensing fees.)

The incremental cost of make chips is not zero.

You can ship software with no support, or only provide support to people who are willing to pay for it. You can't do that with silicon.

I'm not an MBA type. I assume the NRE gets factored into the go/no-go decision when considering a new chip. But once you have made that decision and invested that NRE, it becomes money over the dam.

I had better first explain I am stuck with Xilinx's ise 4.2 due to the later versions not supporting 5 V FPGAs. I am getting ready to move some of my products to newer chips, but still see no need to pay even more $ to Xilinx. So, Maybe Modelsim has improved since the version I use. Part of it is I don't use it often enough to remember where to find internal signals, and have to poke around in a hierarchy of menus to find what I want and get it on the screen. I've never figured out how to save that setup and get it back again for the next sim run. Maybe I need to do some serious RTFM.

Jon

Yes, these sound like many of the things I find cumbersome in ModelSim. I'll have to try out this Active-HDL. Thanks!

Jon

You can use a TCL script in ModelSim to at least setup the simulation environment and wave window the way you want. Each time you want get the setup just type do filename.do in ModelSim's command window. ModelSim is also good in that it gives you the the TCL command equivalent for most of the options you select and actions you take in the GUI (probably because that is how their kludgy GUI actually communicates to the simulation program).

---Matthew Hicks

You can use a TCL script in ModelSim to at least setup the simulation environment and wave window the way you want. Each time you want get the setup just type do filename.do in ModelSim's command window. ModelSim is also good in that it gives you the the TCL command equivalent for most of the options you select and actions you take in the GUI (probably because that is how their kludgy GUI actually communicates to the simulation program).

---Matthew Hicks

environment

Modelsim.ini is another way to set up many parameters including default simulation run time, default display radix...