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From: apple on 10 Jun 2010 14:13
I would like to have capabilities of Chipscope for Xilinx FPGA's

are there any free alternatives to it?

a.t
From: CP on 10 Jun 2010 14:55
have a look at this http://vmagic.sf.net and buid your own.
We have done that using matlab here, but it's in german, I'm afraid:
http://wwwhni.uni-paderborn.de/sct/projekte/hardware-in-the-loop-simulation-mit-raptor2000/hilde-offline-fpga-in-the-loop/
From: rickman on 10 Jun 2010 17:45
On Jun 10, 2:13 pm, apple <sys.app...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> I would like to have capabilities of Chipscope for Xilinx FPGA's
>
> are there any free alternatives to it?

There is a poorman's FPGA debugging tool called "an I/O port". I have
yet to learn to use chipscope or similar tools. I have a few I/Os
available on my device which I tied to a header, often a 0.1" spaced
header with 0.025" square pins (if I have room). I use a regular
scope or logic analyzer. Since the number of I/Os is limited, I
typically use a mux to select which signals come to the I/O header.
Of course this has some limitations, mainly the PITA of often spinning
a new build to get the signals into the mux I want. But that's not
really different from chipscope. I guess they have a tool that routes
the muxed signals on your existing design using unused resources, so
in theory it doesn't disturb the design. But I've never had a problem
where the design was sensitive to this.

If you use good techniques for designing your FPGA and do a good job
of simulating, I expect you will seldom need chipscope or similar
tools.

Rick
From: Andy Peters on 10 Jun 2010 17:51
On Jun 10, 11:13 am, apple <sys.app...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> I would like to have capabilities of Chipscope for Xilinx FPGA's
>
> are there any free alternatives to it?

It's actually pretty easy to write a logic analyzer core. Integrating
it into a design isn't too bad if you instantiate it in your code. But
ChipScope's Core Inserter feature is pretty great and is superior to
instantiating the core.

Writing host software to display it in a pretty manner is difficult if
you don't know how to do it.

Basically, ChipScope is one of Xilinx' shining lights, and is worth
the cost.

-a
From: Nial Stewart on 11 Jun 2010 07:52
"apple" <sys.apple2(a)gmail.com> wrote in message
news:20d4dfc1-6146-4ae7-a050-0343f93536d2(a)q39g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
>I would like to have capabilities of Chipscope for Xilinx FPGA's
> are there any free alternatives to it?


Not free and not a direct alternative but I came up with a prototpype of this...

http://www.1pin-interface.com/

...for debugging my own designs. I found it invaluable for board and device debug
so produced the 1 Pin Interface.

It doesn't give you the low level logic analyser access that Chipscope does but
it works at the next layer giving you easy access to internal status or
control registers.

All that's needed is 1 FPGA IO pin and a GND.



Nial.


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