Re:F4PGA: Open FPGA Tooling: Xilinx 7-Series, Lattice iCE40/...
by procedurecall on Friday September 16, 2022 @03:04AM
(#32863020)
Anyone here ever try using this for only place and route, while sticking to the proprietary tools for synthesis and bitstream generation? I'm honestly not even sure how you'd start (generate xdc and edif in vivado, convert to more common formats, and somehow get timing information?).
I get the impression a lot of emphasis is put on bitstream generation when it comes to open source fpga stuff. However, it seems like that's probably not where the real gains are for build time in any production system. Especially since there's no OSS supporting bitstream generation for the highest end boards anyway.
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Re:F4PGA: Open FPGA Tooling: Xilinx 7-Series, Lattice iCE40/...
by sanxiyn on Friday September 16, 2022 @05:11AM
(#32863893)
I agree it would be great for users to be able to mix and match EDA tools, but EDA tool vendors seem to disagree, and consider the state of poor interoperability among EDA tools as a nice barrier to entry. As far as I can tell open source tools work on bitstream generation because it is unnecessarily painful to interoperate with proprietary tools.
Re:F4PGA: Open FPGA Tooling: Xilinx 7-Series, Lattice iCE40/...
by cleemens on Friday September 16, 2022 @03:33AM
(#32863229)
How do you want to do place and route for the high end boards that are not open/reversed anyway?
Related to the gains, I don't think bitstream generation is the biggest emphasis, its just a no-brainer after you have everything reversed and can do place&route in OSS.