Need help choosing right sim tools for AES encryption

[bskerr2]

I am new to FPGA. I have a basic understanding I hope of what they can do.

I want to develop a home based FPGA firewall, just a basic one to learn FPGA. I work in IT security in the crypto lab at a bank so the understanding behind theory of IP packets, encryption, protocols is no problem.

I have seen a number of dev boards such as products from Digilent, many choices. ALso, Verilog or VHDL, I feel I will go for VHDL because it seems to have better programming structure. Suggestions?

Am I right in saying that Verilog has better simulation than VHDL?

Is it possible for me to find online (free if possible such as webpack) the tools required to simulate so I don't have to go buying hardware at this time until I have a better understanding of what my needs would be?

Before building a firewall I was hoping to get design experience with something simple such as DES cracker project (related to my work), all done in simulation (not trying to actually find the key though exhaustive searches, just wanting to prove the functional ability of the programming, get familiar with VHDL and its dev tools before looking at the correct hardware)

Lastly, what Dev boards are recommended when related to firewall, Ethernet, AES/DES application development. I had looked at a few such as

Avnet Spartan-6 FPGA Industrial Ethernet Kit or one of Digilents products which seem to look pretty good.

So, for you experts out there, what do you recommend.

 

[chinnathurai]

Using modelsim we can do the simulation.

 

[np276]

OP,

I have a project which I will be starting tomorrow for implementation of AES on FPGA.

As per the Lab statement, I shall be using NCSim for simulation in Verilog and Xilinx ISE for the synthesis tool. As far as simulation goes, I do not think that there will be much difference between VHDL and Verilog. Additionally, VHDL might be a little verbose to code and hence you might want to look into Verilog once.