Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

Today, I will talk to you about how to conduct joint simulation of VCS2014 and Verdi2015 under Linux. Many people may not know much about it. In order to let everyone know more, Xiaobian summarizes the following contents for everyone. I hope you can gain something according to this article.

VCS and Verdi are two development tools commonly used in IC design. VCS is a product of Synopsys, which is an EDA simulation tool like ModeSim. Verdi is a product of Nocas (acquired by Synopsys) and an earlier version called Debussy is a very good debugging tool. Although DVE in VCS can also view waveforms and Debug, Verdi is more professional. The only thing that makes many beginners feel uncomfortable is that they need to be used in the Linux environment, which is very unfriendly for those who are used to operating in the Windows environment, but in the company development projects are often Linux environment, convenient for large-scale project development management and team collaboration, even FPGA development is the same, after learning these two tools we can also be used for FPGA development.

Fortunately, many friends on the Internet have already made a set of open source images for IC learning. Figure 1 shows an introduction to one of the open source images I use. After downloading the image package, we only need to open the "EDA.vmx" file with a virtual machine (the virtual machine version I installed is VMware14) to use the complete set of IC development tools that have been installed. Even though this eliminates the cumbersome and error-prone process of installing many software, I still encounter a lot of trouble in use. Below I will tell you about the difficulties I recently encountered in the joint simulation of VCS2014 and Verdi2015, and I would like to thank all my friends who helped me solve this problem.

Fig. 1

Because VCS and Verdi were not originally developed by the same company, their joint use is not friendly. The ".vpd" file Verdi generated by VCS cannot be used directly, but needs to be converted into a ".fsdb" file recognized by Verdi. Therefore, we have to generate the ".fsdb" file first, which is the process that tormented me for a long time.

I'm using a simple state machine example to verify this by writing four required files, RTL code named "moore.v," Testbench named "moore_tb.v," a "Makefile" file containing various commands, and a "file_list.f" design list file. Before this has been debugged in the DVE on VCS, you can also open Verdi separately, now you need to combine them through the ".fsdb" file Debug. As you can see from your research, generating the ".fsdb" file requires adding the lines shown in Figure 2 to Testbench to generate the ".fsdb" file code.

Fig. 2

Then run the "com" compile command in the Makefile shown in Figure 3.

Fig. 3

After typing "make com" in "Terminal", an error appears as shown in Figure 4. Reading the error message, you can know the approximate meaning. It probably means that the system did not find the newly added system function in the Testbench file.

Fig. 4

As shown in Figure 5,"-fsdb" was added to the Makefile after consulting.

Fig. 5

Then continue typing "make com" command in Terminal, as shown in Figure 6, a new error is reported, which probably means that "NOVAS_HOME" is not in the environment variable.

Fig. 6

We use GVIM to open the environment variable setting file for setting. As shown in Figure 7, enter "gvim ~/.bashrc" command in Terminal to open the environment variable setting file and specify the path of "NOVAS_HOME".

Fig. 7

As shown in Figure 8, we find the installation path for Verdi2015 and change it at the appropriate location in Figure 9.

Fig. 8

Fig. 9

Continue to enter the "make com" command in Terminal, and found that the same error as Figure 6 was reported, indicating that the environment variables we set did not work. I have been wondering for a long time whether there was a problem with the setting of environment variables. Finally, with the help of friends, I found that I need to restart the virtual machine after setting the environment variables every time, otherwise the setting of environment variables will be invalid. Be sure to remember.

After restarting the virtual machine, as shown in Figure 10, enter the "make com" command again and find that there is indeed a change, but it is a new error, probably meaning that the version does not support related problems, but also mentioned the library path, really let people head big.

Fig. 10

Then quickly check the information on the Internet, which says that you only need to add two files as shown in Figure 11.

FIG. 11

However, it was disappointing to report an error as shown in Figure 12, which probably means that my VCS is 32-bit and incompatible with 64-bit Verdi. God, this error is so outrageous that I started looking around for answers and finally confirmed that my VCS is 64-bit, no problem.

FIG. 12

After a friend's guidance, deleted the content of the online search (may also be correct but can not solve this situation I encountered), and then changed to the content as shown in Figure 13, that is, on the basis of the original "-fsdb" command, add a "-full64", indicating compilation in 64-bit mode, generate 64-bit mode simulation executable file, and then continue to enter the "make com" command.

FIG. 13

This time really is a miracle, there is no error, I quickly enter the "ls" command as shown in Figure 14 has compiled the file generation, OK, compiled correctly, and then continue to enter the "make sim" command to generate ".fsdb" file, this is the most critical step.

FIG. 14

Still no error, as shown in Figure 15 also appeared in the Testbench I wrote the print message, and then I was full of expectations to enter "ls", and sure enough did not disappoint me this time, generated a ".fsdb" file, very excited, I quickly entered "make run_verdi" to start Verdi software.

FIG. 15

Figure 16 shows the command to open the ".fsdb" file in Makefile using Verdi software.

FIG. 16

As shown in Figure 17, a surprise scene appeared. Verid software was opened, and after a few days, VCS and Verdi were finally combined. (Some friends said that Verdi2016 can start using kdb directly, just like using DVE directly in VCS, you can try it).

FIG. 17

Although this is a small problem, it may be annoying for a long time if you are inexperienced, and it may be a minute thing for those who have experienced it. Encounter problems must not give up easily, to be patient, open-minded consult, thank you to help me solve this problem a lot of warm-hearted friends, I will also use the same enthusiasm to help more people!

Get All signals

FIG. 18

Figure 19 Simulation results

After reading the above, do you have any further understanding of how to conduct joint simulation of VCS2014 and Verdi2015 under Linux? If you still want to know more knowledge or related content, please pay attention to the industry information channel, thank you for your support.

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.