free synthesizer to synthesize VHDL to Actel 1280XL FPGA

I am a final year engineering student, at the moment im having problems with the university eda tools, since im running out of time can anybody pls tell me ant free synthesizer to synthesize VHDL to Actel 1280XL FPGA.

Thanks a lot, pls save my life !!!!!!!!!!!

Prav

thanks again

Hi Prav,

I was surprised by your previous posting on ACTMAP (anybody still using that? I used it about 10 years ago which in terms of EDA tools is ancient :-). Are you sure your university doesn't have access to Synplify, Precision, QNS, XST or FPGA Express? I don't believe that there is a free synthesis tool for the ACT2 family but I could be wrong. I am also surprised you are targeting a 1280XL, not what I call a student friendly FPGA. If your project is in generic VHDL then I would suggest you try one of the free EDA offerings from Altera or Xilinx (or Lattice??).

Hans

What should i do mate :). my ..... uni still uses ancient software and they are bloody hard to use. Even the operating system is Solaris. and i bloody hate it.

Today i got rid of some of the components in the top design (obviously circuit doesn't work properly) and it gave me the edn file after like

I thought about to move to Altera or Xilinx but university doesn't have the fabrication facilities for them. So i may have to stick to actel 1280XL.

thanks anyway prav

I use mentor leonardo. You can get a time-limited eval here:

-- Mike Treseler

Thanks mate, i did fill the form for the trial version. let see how its gonna go !!

cheers !!!

Hi Prav,

Not sure which University you work for but I would advice you to talk to your supervisor and get your EDA tools and target technology sorted out. You can also follows Mike's advice and try to get hold of an evaluation license for Spectrum/Synplify/Precision although I suspect this will fail for Mentor since they have a special University program (Europractice here in the UK).

You can also try to contact Actel directly to see if they can lend you a ProASIC board and a temp license for Libero, no harm in trying.....

Hans