Xilinx ISE s/w comes with almost all the of design flow tasks (i.e design entry to implementation), except simulationg tool. The Optimization level of these tools are also quite good, it's a very powerful tool.
I think the "best tool" term will depend also on your FPGA vendor... I mean if you are using Xilinx FPGAs then you got to use Xilinx ISE and not Altera Quartus...
replacing leonardo spectrum with precision RTL and Physical from mentor Graphics will give better performance numbers.
I have used both and compared and i am surprised by the performance and features in precision .
As far as sysnthesizing on fpgas go the synlify tool is the leader and ofcourse you have to go with the vendors tooo for place and route of their fpgas. DCfpga also does a good job but not as easily as with synplify pro from simplicity. Also you can do the synthesis job with vendors P&R tool and can get some good results.
Added after 1 minutes:
As far as sysnthesizing on fpgas go the synplify tool is the leader and ofcourse you have to go with the vendors tooo for place and route of their fpgas. DCfpga also does a good job but not as easily as with synplify pro from simplicity. Also you can do the synthesis job with vendors P&R tool and can get some good results if the design is not big.
Hi Mic_huhu,
Hope u have worked with synplify, ise and some other synthesis tools for FPGA.
can u plz share, "in what aspects synplify is better than the other tools".
i'm working with ISE, i just wanted to try out Synplify then.
modelsim for hdl entry and simulation (maybe u could use hdl designer),synplify for synthesis and naturally vendors place and route for placement and routing.