Vivado Hl Design Vs System Edition

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Piren Cobrin

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Aug 3, 2024, 4:52:02 PM8/3/24

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Design iterations are common as developers add new features and debug their designs. In many cases these iterations are incremental changes are within a small portion of the design. The Vivado Design Suite offers two key technologies that significantly reduce design iteration times: Incremental compile and Abstract Shell.

While designing Adaptive SoCs and FPGA, early and accurate power estimation is critical to driving crucial design decisions. Power Design Manager is a next generation power estimation tool engineered to provide accurate power estimation early in the design process for large and complex devices such as Versal and UltraScale+ families. This tool was specifically designed to provide accurate power estimations for devices with multiple complex hard IP blocks.

Vivado supports design entry in traditional HDL like VHDL and Verilog. It also supports a graphical user interface-based tool called the IP Integrator (IPI) that allows for a Plug-and-Play IP Integration Design Environment.

Verification and hardware debug is critical to ensure the functionality, performance, and reliability of the final FPGA implementation. The Vivado tool's verification features enable efficient validation of design functionality. Its comprehensive debugging features empower engineers to efficiently locate and resolve issues within complex designs.

Dynamic Function eXchange (DFX) allows designers to dynamically modify sections of their designs on-the-fly. Designers can download partial bitstreams to their AMD devices while the remaining logic continues to operate. This opens a world of possibilities for real time design changes and performance enhancements. Dynamic Function eXchange allows designers to move to fewer or smaller devices, reduce power, and upgrade systems in real-time.

"Intelligent Design Runs is a game-changer by offering a push-button method for aggressively improving timing results. IDR generates QoR suggestions that bring maximum impact, resulting in expert quality results and a reduction in user analysis, especially for tough to close designs."

You'll have to take this response with a grain of salt considering that we as Digilent are one of those re-sellers that you mentioned, but I'll see if I can give you a helpful response here on the Forum having set aside my webteam hat.

All major versions of Vivado that I presume you would be looking into (WebPACK, Design, and System Editions) all support the Vivado Logic Analyzer and various debug IPs such as the Intergrated Logic Analyzer, which as I understand it is Vivado's successor to Chipscope from Xilinx ISE. Considering that Xilinx has not stated any plans to continue to working on ISE and will be primarily focusing on supporting Vivado, I wouldn't be too anxious to get a Chipscope license (although the link you provided to Digikey didn't indicate anything about Chipscope).

Similarly, Vivado has its own version of a simulator like ISIM, which all major versions of Vivado include. I don't know what the differences of the simulator, if any, are between the various editions of Vivado.

None of us at Digilent have experience with EPICS so we can't speak towards that. However these newer editions of Vivado (2016.1 onward if I'm not mistaken) support HLS (High-Level Synthesis) to allow for C/C++ development in the Vivado environment, although I do not personally know how robust it is, but I suspect it does fairly well for what it is and that Xilinx will support it since it was recently implemented. The SDSoC license would probably be good in this case since it's likely a lot more optimized for writing C/C++ code for an SoC, such as the Zynq chip present on the Zedboard.

In terms of IP cores, that is something that the Design Edition Voucher would be good for since it will give you (from my understanding) it will let you generate bitstreams for some of Xilinx's more complex IPs cores such as TEMAC. The TEMAC core isn't included with the Vivado Design edition though (from my understanding) so it would need to be evaluated or licensed separately. Lite ethernet versions from Xilinx do exist though that don't require the Design Edition of Vivado, but are more limited in functionality (although I can't personally speak towards how they are limited/in what way they are different). Those of us here are Digilent aren't familiar with EtherCAT so we can't speak towards that.

From your initial description, I presume this work would be lab related as opposed to classroom based teaching material, so I imagine this is less of a "learning/teaching" as opposed to an "implementing" situation, so that'll affect your decision. I guess the thing with vouchers of any kind is that they are node locked (so they only are applied to one system/computer) and are only valid for one year. During that year you can upgrade to newer versions of that particular edition that Xilinx releases at no additional charge, but be unable to do so after that year without re-purchasing access to the edition. After that year is up, you will be able to use whatever edition is installed on that machine more or less indefinitely without restrictions.

In the end, it sounds like you'll end up wanting some sort of Vivado edition with good C/C++ support. However, Digilent (I can't speak for Avnet or Xilinx) won't be able to offer a ton of help integrating 3rd party systems into your solution since we don't actively support them. So to me it sounds like you'll either want the SDSoC voucher or the Design Edition voucher, although I don't know what additional IPs the Design Edition enables nor do I know a whole lot about SDSoC and what it offers/is capable of.

Thank your for your detailed reply. I have decided that the best option for me is the combination with the Vivado Design Edition voucher. I am rather more interested in the IP licences that I can get access to.

Agreed about the IPs. I'm not certain what licenses you receive access to; I did a bit of searching for a list of what IPs come with which editions of Vivado but came up empty (but maybe I was searching in the completely wrong location). Some, like the TEMAC I mentioned, apparently won't (from what I've been told from my coworkers) be licensed via the Design Edition, just be able to have a bitstream generated, since apparently the WebPACK Edition will not generate the bitstream for whatever reason. I do not know if such license list exists; the people over on the Xilinx forum might know that answer. Otherwise, it may all be manually asking about individual IPs.

I guess the thing with vouchers of any kind is that they are node locked (so they only are applied to one system/computer) and are only valid for one year. During that year you can upgrade to newer versions of that particular edition that Xilinx releases at no additional charge, but be unable to do so after that year without re-purchasing access to the edition. After that year is up, you will be able to use whatever edition is installed on that machine more or less indefinitely without restrictions.

So, recently I purchased a ZedBoard from Digilent (excellent product!), and yesterday I went to the Xilinx website to use my vouchers (it's written on the vouchers that they can be used 1 year from the purchase, so I haven't redeemed that for a couple months now). Now, as @JColvin mentioned, the subscription is for a year, but I have some questions regarding that.

As I understand, that means I won't be able to get Xilinx software tools updates after a year, but would I regain access if I purchase the same board from Digilent and use another voucher? Also, what would happen if I decide to get a a different board, with a different FPGA chip (still Xilinx)? Would I still be able to use the software with my old (current) board, without any problems?

I've personally never tried to do this, so it is speculation on my part in terms of the usage of Xilinx voucher. Ultimately, Xilinx will be the final authority on their own software so it will be up to them on how everything will work.

As I understand, that means I won't be able to get Xilinx software tools updates after a year, but would I regain access if I purchase the same board from Digilent and use another voucher? -- Yes, I believe that would be the case because the license is node locked so it wouldn't be concerned that the board has a different serial number.

Also, what would happen if I decide to get a a different board, with a different FPGA chip (still Xilinx)? Would I still be able to use the software with my old (current) board, without any problems? -- I'm not certain what you mean here. If the other board comes with a node locked voucher, then it will be the same situation where you can use it. But if you just get another board in general with no voucher or anything special, then you will still be able the software that is still on your machine from the previous voucher with the original board.