Getting started with Xilinx ISE
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Contents
- Introduction
- Xilinx ISE
- Web Edition
- Licensed softwares
- Installing Xilinx ISE Web Edition on Linux
- UNIX environment
- Running Xilinx ISE
- Supported devices
- …
Keywords:
Introduction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xilinx_ISE
free version vs. commercial version
Development tool: Xilinx ISE/Vivado design suites.
http://www.xilinx.com/products/silicon-devices/fpga/index.htm
http://www.xilinx.com/products/design-tools/index.htm
Full documentation about Xilinx products:
http://www.xilinx.com/support/index.htm
A very complete and exhaustive tutorial by J. Banks,
The Spartan-3E Tutorial 1 : Introduction to FPGA Programming, Version 2.0
http://eprints.qut.edu.au/76297/1/Spartan3E_Tutorial_1ver2.pdf
Xilinx ISE
ISE (Integrated Software Environment)
Web Edition
Xilinx ISE Web Edition is a free version of Xilinx ISE Design Suite that can be downloaded from Xilinx at no charge. Being a free version, it provides synthesis and programming capabilities for a limited number of Xilinx target devices. A license file is required to use the Web Edition of Xilinx ISE, but it is free as well and can be renewed an unlimited number of times.
http://www.xilinx.com/products/design-tools/ise-design-suite/ise-webpack.htm
Licensed softwares
The full-version of Xilinx ISE Design Suite is commercial and a license must be paid for using the software. Several licenses are available to run full-versions of Xilinx ISE design platform within the Electronics lab.
Xilinx tools are installed on the elt95wx.to.infn.it machine (RHEL 5.x) and can be accessed through NFS under
/export/elt95wx/disk0/Xilinx/
To access Electronics lab Xilinx tools, first create a mount point
/export/elt95wx/disk0/
on your local system,
# cd /export && mkdir elt95wx # cd elt95wx && mkdir disk0
then mount elt95wx NFS resources with
# mount -t nfs elt95wx:/export/elt95wx/disk0 /export/elt95wx/disk0
or add the following line to your local /etc/fstab
configuration file and reboot your system:
elt95wx:/export/elt95wx/disk0 /export/elt95wx/disk0 nfs hard,intr,bg
Note
NFS on elt95wx is not configured to allow remote mounting from any client workstation!
If you retrive an access denied
error, please contact deremigi@NOSPAMto.infn.it.
Design flow
Installing Xilinx ISE Web Edition on Linux (full-installer download)
In this section we describe how to install the free edition of Xilinx ISE Design Suite (aka WebPack edition) on Linux operating systems.
Xilinx officially supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and SUSE Enterprise Linux (SEL), both 64 and 32 bit architercures. Xilinx ISE can be installed on most popular Linux distributions indeed.
The official documentation about Xilinx ISE installation and licensing can be found in the Xilinx Design Tools Installation and Licensing Guide:
http://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/sw_manuals/xilinx14_2/iil.pdf
Download from
http://www.xilinx.com/support/download/index.html
the latest version (currently 14.6) of Xilinx ISE Design Suite full installer for Linux. Valid Xilinx login credentials are required, thus you must create a new Xilinx account before or login with your Xilinx account. Registration is free. The full installer comes as a single very huge (~6 GB) tar file. Alternatively you can perform a multi-file installation. After the download has been completed, untar the archive in your download directory:
cd /path/to/archive tar xvf Xilinx_ISE_DS_Lin_14.6_P.68d_3.tar
To begin the installation, enter the Xilinx directory and run the installation wizard xsetup
:
cd Xilinx_ISE_DS_Lin_14.6_P.68d_3 ./xsetup &
Root privileges are required if you want Xilinx to install
specific drivers to the system. Otherwise, a user installation
in your local area can be performed without root privileges.
Make sure that you have about 5-6 GB of free space in your installation
directory. A base installation of Xilinx ISE with only the Web Edition supported devices
requires more than 2 GB of disk space.
During installation, uncheck the Install Cable Drivers option. Leaving it checked will cause errors during the installation.
By default the entire design suite is installed in the /opt/Xilinx
directory,
but you can also specify a different installation location, e.g. ~/local/opt/xilinx
.
cd ~/local/opt mkdir xilinx cd xilinx mkdir tmp
If you don't have a local area for user's installations yet, read how to Build your own local development environment .
The install process will take a long time.
cd ~/local/opt/xilinx ln -s 14.6/ISE_DS ISE_DS
After the installation has been complete, remove sources to free disk space:
rm Xilinx_ISE_DS_Lin_14.6_P.68d_3.tar rm -rf Xilinx_ISE_DS_Lin_14.6_P.68d_3
Further installation notes for Linux operating systems can be found at:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6857
http://www.linuxjournal.com/magazine/fpga-programming-linux
https://www.wrbishop.com/fpga/how-to-configure-xilinx-fpga-design-suite-13-3-under-rhelcentos-6-x-fedora-15/ (must-read!)
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xilinx_ISE_WebPACK
http://www.armadeus.com/wiki/index.php?title=ISE_WebPack_installation_on_Linux
http://www.gentoo-wiki.info/HOWTO_Xilinx
http://sadgeeksinsnow.blogspot.it/2012/01/installing-xilinx-ise-webpack-on-linux.html
http://dreamrunner.org/blog/2012/09/12/install-xilinx-ise-on-the-ubuntu/
http://www.george-smart.co.uk/wiki/Xilinx_JTAG_Linux
More details about Xilinx ISE WebPack edition can be found at:
http://www.xilinx.com/products/design-tools/ise-design-suite/ise-webpack.htm
Installing Xilinx ISE Web Edition on Linux (multi-file download)
Download separate files (~1.9 GB each file):
Xilinx_ISE_DS_14.6_P.68d_3-1.tar
[All platforms split installer base image]
Xilinx_ISE_DS_14.6_P.68d_3-2.zip.xz
[Install data A]
Xilinx_ISE_DS_14.6_P.68d_3-3.zip.xz
[Install data B]
Xilinx_ISE_DS_14.6_P.68d_3-4.zip.xz
[Install data C]
mkdir ~/local/opt/xilinx/tmp mv /path/to/Xilinx_ISE_DS_14.6_P.68d_3-1.tar ~/local/opt/xilinx/tmp cd ~/local/opt/xilinx/tmp tar -xvf Xilinx_ISE_DS_14.6_P.68d_3-1.tar
The remaining zip.xz
files does not require to be unpacked. Put them in the same directory where you
have extracted the main archive
mv /path/to/Xilinx_ISE_DS_14.6_P.68d_3-2.zip.xz ~/local/opt/xilinx/tmp mv /path/to/Xilinx_ISE_DS_14.6_P.68d_3-3.zip.xz ~/local/opt/xilinx/tmp mv /path/to/Xilinx_ISE_DS_14.6_P.68d_3-4.zip.xz ~/local/opt/xilinx/tmp
Run the Linux installer xsetup
cd ~/local/opt/xilinx/tmp ./xsetup &
See also
http://www.cs.sfu.ca/CourseCentral/250/bfraser/labs/GuideToXilinxToolInstall.pdf
Installing Xilinx ISE Web Edition on Windows (multi-file download)
Download separate files (~1.9 GB each file):
Xilinx_ISE_DS_14.6_P.68d_3-1.tar
[All platforms split installer base image]
Xilinx_ISE_DS_14.6_P.68d_3-2.zip.xz
[Install data A]
Xilinx_ISE_DS_14.6_P.68d_3-3.zip.xz
[Install data B]
Xilinx_ISE_DS_14.6_P.68d_3-4.zip.xz
[Install data C]
Note: to untar under Windows you need e.g. 7-Zip, which is open source software.
read how to unpack a tar file in Windows.
7z x Xilinx_ISE_DS_14.6_P.68d_3-1.tar
UNIX environment setup
Create a main working area for all your Xilinx projects:
cd ~/scratch mkdir xilinx && cd xilinx mkdir doc projects
Documentation
Create a local documentation repository for the Xilinx ISE design platform:
cd ~/scratch/doc mkdir xilinx && cd xilinx find ~/local/opt/xilinx -name "*.pdf" -exec ln -s {} . \;
Keep projects documentation in your working directory instead,
cd ~/scratch/xilinx mkdir doc
UNIX environment
Setup the UNIX environment with the <install dir>/settings32.(c)sh
or
<install dir>/settings64.(c)sh
which come with Xilinx ISE installation
source ~/local/opt/xilinx/ISE_DS/settings32.(c)sh
For 64 bit machines (the command uname -m
should output x86_64
):
source ~/local/opt/xilinx/ISE_DS/settings64.(c)sh
Check with:
which ise
~/local/opt/xilinx/14.6/ISE_DS/ISE/bin/lin64/ise
Running Xilinx ISE
To run Xilinx ISE, use
cd ~/scratch/xilinx source ~/local/opt/xilinx/ISE_DS/settings64.(c)sh ise &
This will open the ISE Project Navigator.
NOTA! Non funziona invece il source di un symlink allo script! E nemmeno il source di una copia locale dello script…
It is recommented to create a symlink to the main setup script in your working directory
cd ~/scratch/xilinx ln -s ~/local/opt/xilinx/ISE_DS/settings64.(c)sh . source settings64.(c)sh
Licensing
A free license is required to run Xilinx ISE WebPack edition.
The first time you launch ISE Project Navigator, a Xilinx License Error window should appear.
Left click OK, then the Xilinx License Configuration Manager opens
(alternatively, you can launch the _xlcm
executable).
Left click on the Connect Now button. You will be redirected tu Xilinx Product Licensing page. Alternatively, connect to
http://www.xilinx.com/getlicense
before starting ISE.
Authenticate yourself with your Xilinx account and obtain a free WebPack license.
A license file Xilinx.lic
will be send to the mail address specified during Xilinx account creation. Download the binary file
and install it though the Xlinx License Configuration Manager. Open the Manage Xilinx Licenses tab and left click the Load License button.
Browse your file system and select the Xilinx.lic
file. The license will be automatically installed in to a new
~/.Xilinx
directory in your home.
Supported devices
See also:
Training documentation
A lot of documentation is freely available on xilinx.com. Must-read documents are:
Xilinx ISE In-Depth Tutorial,
http://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/sw_manuals/xilinx14_4/ise_tutorial_ug695.pdf
Getting started tutorials
To get started with simulating your designs refere to Verilog/VHDL simulation with Xilinx ISE.