Features of Xilinx ISE WebPACK & Altera's Quartus II.

(I start a new thread, so maybe there will be more answers.)

I wrote (in thread "Differences between Xilinx ISE Foundation and WebPACK"):

Here follows more newbie-questions. > > As the Spartan-3 Starter Kit comes with only sixty > days evaluation version of "ISE Foundation", and > not time-limited version of "ISE WebPACK", I listed > their differences from >
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> > and realized that WebPACK is lacking at least > these features that come with the Foundation: > > CORE Generator System > Modular Design > FPGA Editor with Probe > SMARTModels for PowerPC and RocketIO. > > What are these, and how essential they are > if I (eventually/immediately) want to do my own designs?

At least on Xilinx DS099 Spartan-3 Complete data sheet:

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in "CLB Overview" it mentions both "FPGA Editor" (on page 10), and later, on page 13: "Other memory functions - e.g., FIFO's data path width conversion, ROM, etc. - are readily available using the CORE Generator system, part of the Xilinx development software." I guess the latter is some kind of a macro library, but the former, the "FPGA Editor" seems to be more important. As it is lacking from WebPACK, does this mean that I cannot specify in my designs with an explicit control how everything is done down at CLB-level?

(But instead, write just VHDL or Verilog code, and hope that some other part of the development system "compiles" it sensibly.)

Also, does WebPACK support both VHDL and Verilog > fully? > Anybody knows if there there plans to port it (WebPACK) > to Linux or other Unix-systems, and when? > (And similar question for Altera's Quartus-II software.)

Also, I would like to know whether the free version of Altera's Quartus-II contain similar subsystems: "FPGA Editor", "CORE generator", "Modular design", etc. of Xilinx ISE Foundation that have been excluded from ISE WebPACK, or is it likewisely stripped version?

Please have patience with my questions, I come from the software world...

Yours,

Antti Karttunen

Reply to
Antti Karttunen (remove the trailing .do from the address)
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The very nice feature of both solution is that they are free! The simplest way to get your questions answered is just download both and try out your design. After this experiment ask yourself if you really want to struggle with the placement of the cells. The P&R tools are pretty smart now.

Martin

---------------------------------------------- JOP - a Java Processor core for FPGAs:

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Reply to
Martin Schoeberl

OK, now I did some homework, and can ask more sensible questions.

Especially, I found the page

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and there it says: "You have 4 basic options (for implementing designs): HDL, state machine, schematic, or FPGA editor. These roughly correspond to decreasing levels of abstraction." And from
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it seems to be clear that only the first three options are supported by ISE WebPack.

How about the "CORE Generator System", which refers to

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and is also missing from WebPACK. Can I find similar macros/modules (?) for "adders, accumulators and multipliers, filters, transforms and memories" from some Open source, or create my own reusable macro/module library if I eventually have to design some of them by myself?

Then to Altera's Quartus II (Free) Web Edition. Is its software license TIME-LIMITED or not? Which of those four levels of design, "HDL, state machine, schematic, or FPGA editor" it does support?

Can I run it under WINE in Linux, as WebPACK can be run? (see

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)

Martin Schoeberl kindly answered to my previous questions:

After reading some horror stories of Xilinx development software license-related uninstallation/reinstallation troubles (see

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on this newsgroup), I want to be sure that I can install the ISE Foundation Evaluation version (that comes with Spartan-3 Starter Kit) any time at _future_, even although I would _already_ have ISE WebPACK installed on my disk, even although it would be older version (than ISE Foundation). Is that kind of separate installation of ISE WebPACK and ISE Foundation (Evaluation version) possible, or are they bungled under the same installation package/software on those CDs?

I might do, eventually, after getting a few years of experience, especially if I'll experiment with simple, homogeneous CA-systems. Maybe then I will have $XXXX to invest to the complete design systems.

Yours,

Antti

Reply to
Antti Karttunen (remove the trailing .do from the address)

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