Good, affordable verilog simulator

Mar 08, 2005 11 Replies

Can anybody recommend a good PC-based verilog simulator for substantially less than $4500?



I am a new hire at a company which spent big bucks on ModelSim just two years ago. Unfortunately we purchased VHDL and I am a verilog designer. We have a tight schedule so I will stick with the familiar language. I would use the VHDL simulator but Xilinx tools won't put out a VHDL model from verilog source files. Mentor Graphics will not allow an inexpensive license switch from our present VHDL to the verilog (They charge full price and give us no credit for the previous full price purchase). I can't use the "Xilinx Edition ModelSim" becuase it won't support my target, the XC2VP20, as far as I know.



Any suggestions would be appreciated.


First: put a line break at 60 charaters per line

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Uwe Bonnes bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de Institut fuer Kernphysik Schlossgartenstrasse 9 64289 Darmstadt --------- Tel. 06151 162516 -------- Fax. 06151 164321 ----------

Last price list shows definitely more than 4,500 for Verilog-only Active-HDL PE. I don't know if they will separate the simulator from the development environment.

Maybe you should ask them for Riviera instead of Active-HDL?

Regards, PR

than $4500?

ago. Unfortunately we purchased VHDL and I am a verilog designer. We have a tight schedule so I will stick with the familiar language. I would use the VHDL simulator but Xilinx tools won't put out a VHDL model from verilog source files. Mentor Graphics will not allow an inexpensive license switch from our present VHDL to the verilog (They charge full price and give us no credit for the previous full price purchase). I can't use the "Xilinx Edition ModelSim" becuase it won't support my target, the XC2VP20, as far as I know.

Try GPL Cver, it's 1394 compliant and it's free.

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Kevin, I wouldn't mind simulating in VHDL, but the Xilinx tool won't let me setup any of the "create simulation model" processes to output VHDL. I only get a variety of verilog flavors to choose from. (My source files are verilog.) Do you know a different way?

OK, I found the documentation on NetGen. I'll give it a try. Thanks everyone for responding.

Going from Verilog to VHDL isn't as big a headache as you think. Go to

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and click on HDL comparison to get a quick guide on the differences in Confluence, Verilog and VHDL.

Hi, I was able to make Xilinx Edition ModelSim(free) work both for verilog and vhdl. Follow the below procedure.

What you can do is first install vhdl version, then copy vhdl folder from C:\Modeltech_xe_starter\xilinx\vhdl to different location. Then uninstall the modelsim and again install this time for verilog, this time you have C:\Modeltech_xe_starter\xilinx\verilog Now copy the vhdl from previous location to this location C:\Modeltech_xe_starter\xilinx\ If you now open the modelsim you have both libraries.

Thanks rao

"Mentor Graphics will not allow an inexpensive license switch from our present VHDL to the verilog" Try asking if they can trade a verilog license for a vhdl license that you can spare for the time being.

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