VCS Post P&R Simulation Problem

[tlos]

Hi dear all,

I have a design. I synthesized it Synplify Premier for Xilinx Virtex 4 fpga device. I could perform behavioral simulation and post synthesis simulation with VCS simulator. Synplify Premier uses Place&Route tool of Xilinx for place and route job. It places and routes without any problem. When I want to perform Post Place and Route simulation with VCS, it asks for "Post Place and Route Netlist". When I had a look at implementation result files all the files I can see with "netlist" label are edif netlist, srd netlist, srm netlist, srl netlist. I tried to give each of them as an input, but it didnt accept. I have been reading documents from Synopsys, have been searching on forums, websites. But couldnt find any solution. Does anybody have any experience with such problems/issues? Using Synplify Premier and VCS together? Btw, I give Post Place&Route Simulation Netlist input file using a gui, and it wants me to give post p&r netlist in vhd format but no file with vhd or vhdl is created after all steps of synthesis, map, place and route. I dont really know what to do.

 

[mrflibble]

I'm afraid I don't have a solution for you. Since I will be using exactly the same setup as you are in the near future, I do have a question... What versions of Synplify Premier, ISE and VCS are you using here?

 

[tlos]

Synplify Premier's version is 2011.03
VCS 2010.03
Premier wants you to use either Xilinx PAR 11.1 or 11.2

 

[mrflibble]

Bummer! So for a synplify premiere version as recent as 2011.03 you have to use fairly old xilinx PAR tools? I was hoping to be able to use at least the tools from ise 12.x. Thanks for clarifying!

 

[tlos]

We have Xilinx 13.1 ISE. I firstly used PAR version 13.1. It didnt cause any problem. PAR tool placed and routed the design. But there comes up a gui, and it has only two options for vendor tool(ISE PAR) 11.1 and 11.2.

 

[mrflibble]

We have Xilinx 13.1 ISE. I firstly used PAR version 13.1. It didnt cause any problem. PAR tool placed and routed the design. But there comes up a gui, and it has only two options for vendor tool(ISE PAR) 11.1 and 11.2.

Ah okay, so PAR from ISE 13.1 works without problem.

But where does this gui you mention come up? Is that during post place & route simulation in VCS? Or somewhere earlier?

 

[tlos]

It is in Synplify Premier with the name of "Configure and Launch VCS Simulator". You type top module name, select vendor version, and so on.

 

[mrflibble]

Ah okay. So Synplify Premier knows you are using an older version of VCS in the flow, and knows that this version of VCS only supports PAR 11.1/11.2. At least, that would be my guess...

As it is, looks like I'll get to use CVS 2010.06, so hopefully that doesn't have this restriction...