On 2018-12-05, Rob Gaddi <rgaddi@highlandtechnology.invalid> wrote:> On 12/5/18 2:34 PM, Grant Edwards wrote: > >> Once we ditched the massive pile of Altera's garbage IDE, things went >> much smoother. [Until, as the project neared completion, it became >> obvious that the performance of the NIOS2 was nowhere near what was >> promised, and the whole thing was abandoned.] >> >> The hardware guys were, of course, chained to the Altera VHDL IDE >> software for the duration -- presumably for heinous sins committed >> in a previous life. > > Nah, you can get out of the IDE there too. You wind up having to write > Makefiles that write and call Tcl scripts that communicate with a > jtag-server executable that you extract from deep within the bowels of > the IDE. It's deeply unpleasant, and still preferable for production > code to using the IDE.Can you avoid using the IDE to compile the VHDL and build the various formats of bitstream files? -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! My NOSE is NUMB! at gmail.com
Makefile or not?
Started by ●December 3, 2018
Reply by ●December 5, 20182018-12-05
Reply by ●December 5, 20182018-12-05
On 12/5/18 3:50 PM, Grant Edwards wrote:> On 2018-12-05, Rob Gaddi <rgaddi@highlandtechnology.invalid> wrote: >> On 12/5/18 2:34 PM, Grant Edwards wrote: >>> The hardware guys were, of course, chained to the Altera VHDL IDE >>> software for the duration -- presumably for heinous sins committed >>> in a previous life. >> >> Nah, you can get out of the IDE there too. You wind up having to write >> Makefiles that write and call Tcl scripts that communicate with a >> jtag-server executable that you extract from deep within the bowels of >> the IDE. It's deeply unpleasant, and still preferable for production >> code to using the IDE. > > Can you avoid using the IDE to compile the VHDL and build the various > formats of bitstream files? >Mostly. You (practically) have to use the IDE to configure the settings file, the .qsf, which tells it what bitstreams to make, what the sources files are, etc. Once that file is correct (and it's text, so it's VCSable), you can just run make. See below, one of my team's Quartus makefiles. We're doing the same in Xilinx Vivado these days, which was again a tedious and awful process to get going. I have no idea why no FPGA vendor believes that repeatable build control is something that matters to their customer base; left to my own devices we'd be doing CI on the version control server. ######################################################################## # This is the makefile to build 22C230B, the FPGA for the V230 Analog # Input Module. It builds rbf 22C230B.rbf to be used by the 22E230 # for programming on an EP3C5F256. # # The default target builds the necessary image. Other targets are: # reg_map : Builds the register map files. # clean : Removes all build products. # # Karla Vega, Highland Technology, Inc. # 29-May-2014 ######################################################################## ######################################################################## # Tools and binary locations ######################################################################## SHELL ?= /bin/bash QUARTUS ?= $(QUARTUS_ROOTDIR) IS_CYGWIN := $(findstring CYGWIN,$(shell uname)) ifneq "" "$(IS_CYGWIN)" QUARTUS_BIN := $(shell cygpath "$(QUARTUS)")/bin else QUARTUS_BIN := $(QUARTUS)/bin endif quartus_map := $(QUARTUS_BIN)/quartus_map quartus_fit := $(QUARTUS_BIN)/quartus_fit quartus_asm := $(QUARTUS_BIN)/quartus_asm quartus_sta := $(QUARTUS_BIN)/quartus_sta quartus_sh := $(QUARTUS_BIN)/quartus_sh ######################################################################## # Project configuration. ######################################################################## PROJECT := 22C230 REV := B DRAFT := 0 DEVICE_FAMILY := "Cyclone III" DEVICE := EP3C5F256 DEVICE_SPEEDGRADE := 8 FINAL := 22C230$(REV)$(filter-out 0,$(DRAFT)) # Bring in sources.mk, which is autogenerated from the Quartus project file. ifeq "$(findstring $(MAKECMDGOALS),clean)" "" include sources.mk endif ASSIGNMENT_FILES = $(PROJECT).qpf $(PROJECT).qsf OUTPUT_DIR := output CORE_DIR := src/cores REG_MAP_DIR := src/reg_map VHDL_DIR := src/vhdl # Composite source list SOURCES = $(22C230_SOURCES) # Destination list RBF_FILE := $(OUTPUT_DIR)/$(FINAL).rbf ######################################################################## # Phony targets ######################################################################## .PHONY: all reg_map all: $(ROM_FILE) $(OUTPUT_DIR)/$(PROJECT).asm.rpt $(OUTPUT_DIR)/$(PROJECT).sta.rpt clean: rm -rf db incremental_db $(OUTPUT_DIR) *.chg sources.mk ######################################################################## # Rules ######################################################################## # No implicit rules, they won't do us any good. .SUFFIXES: # Quartus forces us to keep the list of all the source files in the .qsf # file. In the interest of avoiding redundancy, we have a Tcl script to # rip these out and turn them into the sources.mk file that we include # earlier on. Therefore, if the .qsf file changes, or if the SOPC_TARGET # needs rebuilding (which changes the .qip file which changes the file # dependency list), we'll rebuild the sources.mk file. # sources.mk: $(ASSIGNMENT_FILES) $(quartus_sh) -t list_files.tcl $(PROJECT) # Quartus build process from the --help=makefiles option. STAMP := echo done > $(OUTPUT_DIR)/$(PROJECT).map.rpt: map.chg $(SOURCES) $(quartus_map) $(MAP_ARGS) $(PROJECT) $(STAMP) fit.chg $(OUTPUT_DIR)/$(PROJECT).fit.rpt: fit.chg $(OUTPUT_DIR)/$(PROJECT).map.rpt $(quartus_fit) $(FIT_ARGS) $(PROJECT) $(STAMP) asm.chg $(STAMP) sta.chg $(OUTPUT_DIR)/$(PROJECT).asm.rpt $(RBF_FILE): asm.chg $(OUTPUT_DIR)/$(PROJECT).fit.rpt $(quartus_asm) $(ASM_ARGS) $(PROJECT) $(OUTPUT_DIR)/$(PROJECT).sta.rpt: sta.chg $(OUTPUT_DIR)/$(PROJECT).fit.rpt $(quartus_sta) $(STA_ARGS) $(PROJECT) $(OUTPUT_DIR)/smart.log: $(ASSIGNMENT_FILES) $(quartus_sh) --determine_smart_action $(PROJECT) > $(OUTPUT_DIR)/smart.log ################################################################### # Project initialization ################################################################### map.chg: $(STAMP) map.chg fit.chg: $(STAMP) fit.chg sta.chg: $(STAMP) sta.chg asm.chg: $(STAMP) asm.chg -include local.mk And the referenced list_files.tcl # list_files.tcl # # Extracts all of the source file names from the Quartus project # settings file, and writes them into sources.mk so that they can # be pulled into the makefile. # # Rob Gaddi, Highland Technology. # 15-May-2013 set source_files {VHDL_FILE VERILOG_FILE QIP_FILE} set projname [lindex $argv 0] project_open $projname set hOut [open {sources.mk} {WRONLY CREAT}] puts -nonewline $hOut "[string toupper $projname]_SOURCES := " foreach ftype $source_files { foreach_in_collection dat [get_all_global_assignments -name $ftype] { set fn [lindex $dat 2] puts $hOut "$fn \\" } } puts $hOut "" close $hOut project_close -- Rob Gaddi, Highland Technology -- www.highlandtechnology.com Email address domain is currently out of order. See above to fix.
Reply by ●December 5, 20182018-12-05
On 12/5/18 4:27 PM, Rob Gaddi wrote:> On 12/5/18 3:50 PM, Grant Edwards wrote: >> On 2018-12-05, Rob Gaddi <rgaddi@highlandtechnology.invalid> wrote: >>> On 12/5/18 2:34 PM, Grant Edwards wrote: >>>> The hardware guys were, of course, chained to the Altera VHDL IDE >>>> software for the duration -- presumably for heinous sins committed >>>> in a previous life. >>> >>> Nah, you can get out of the IDE there too. You wind up having to write >>> Makefiles that write and call Tcl scripts that communicate with a >>> jtag-server executable that you extract from deep within the bowels of >>> the IDE. It's deeply unpleasant, and still preferable for production >>> code to using the IDE. >> >> Can you avoid using the IDE to compile the VHDL and build the various >> formats of bitstream files? >> > > Mostly. You (practically) have to use the IDE to configure the settings > file, the .qsf, which tells it what bitstreams to make, what the sources > files are, etc. Once that file is correct (and it's text, so it's > VCSable), you can just run make. > > See below, one of my team's Quartus makefiles. We're doing the same in > Xilinx Vivado these days, which was again a tedious and awful process to > get going. I have no idea why no FPGA vendor believes that repeatable > build control is something that matters to their customer base; left to > my own devices we'd be doing CI on the version control server. >> [snip] In related news, https://hdlmake.readthedocs.io seems to have come along quite a way since the last time I looked in on it. Might have to give it a try out on my next project. -- Rob Gaddi, Highland Technology -- www.highlandtechnology.com Email address domain is currently out of order. See above to fix.
Reply by ●December 6, 20182018-12-06
Rob Gaddi <rgaddi@highlandtechnology.invalid> wrote:> In related news, https://hdlmake.readthedocs.io seems to have come along > quite a way since the last time I looked in on it. Might have to give > it a try out on my next project.We have a fully Makefile-based FPGA toolchain, which is critical for continuous integration builds, but generally projects are begun and tweaked from the GUI - typically it's not a one-way street (so you can open the project files used by the Makefile build in the GUI). While in principle all the tools can be driven from tcl, by the time you've worked out the hundred tcl statements you needed you might as well have used the GUI. I had a play with hdlmake as we have increasing need to do Intel and Xilinx builds from the same codebase. It handles some basic stuff, like pin assignments, but anything of complexity (eg instantiating vendor IP cores) are going to need the vendor tools. hdlmake does avoid having to know the incantations to call Intel/Xilinx/etc parts of the build system and replaces with a single command, but that's not the biggest problem. (my current issue is Xilinx IP Integrator's idea of schematic capture from the 1980s, complete with a mush of overlapping wires, and am trying to work out whether I can build complex SoCs entirely from tcl - in this case I think the GUI is so awful anything is better) Theo
Reply by ●December 6, 20182018-12-06
On 05/12/18 23:34, Grant Edwards wrote:> On 2018-12-05, Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote: >> >>> Never, ever, use any software written or provided by the silicon >>> vendor. Everytime I've failed to obey that rule, I've regretted it. >> >> How about for FPGAs? ;) > > I spent some time working with a NIOS2 core on an Altera > Cyclone-something-or-other. In the beginning, somebody got conned > into using the Altera tools for doing software development. As > expected, they were horrendous. It was Eclipse with a bunch of > plugins. > > IIRC, there were Eclipse plugins that called scripts written in bash > that called Perl scripts that called Java apps that generated TCL that > got fed to other scripts that generated header files... and on and on > and on. The tools required more RAM that most of our development > machines had. And it appeared to re-generate everything from scratch > everytime you wanted to build anything. >If you think that is fun, just imagine doing it on Windows - with all the TCL and perl running under Cygwin. It is a long time since I used the Nios, and I only did so very briefly (the project was cancelled for many reasons). But I seem to remember there being a lot of extra building going on due to the interaction between the software and the hardware. On the one side, the software for the Nios was made into a ROM component for the FPGA design, and thus meant at least a partial FPGA rebuild (and incremental builds were only in the expensive version of the tools, not the free ones). On the other side, a build in the FPGA side could mean changes to the automatically generated include files for the peripheral registers and addresses, triggering a software rebuild. But it certainly /was/ possible to separate software and hardware development. Typically you only have such tight integration for a small part of the software - a boot rom - that sets up memory and loads the real program from external flash. That program can be developed independently. (And again, separate makefiles are more efficient - but the IDE with plugins can make debugging nicer.) It is also worth noting that Eclipse has got far better since the early days of the NIOS2. It used to be a serious memory and processor hog, with few features to justify the weight. These days it still takes a fair chunk of memory, but it is a far lower fraction of the typical workstation. (My main Linux system generally has at least three or four distinct instances of Eclipse running at any one time, in different workspaces, for different projects.) And I find it to be the best choice for bigger projects in C, C++, and Python - as well as convenient for LaTeX and other coding. (But with external makefiles!).> After fighting what that for a few months we threw it all out and > started from scratch with the gnu toolchain, makefiles, and our own > header files we wrote with info gleaned from the above mess. > > There was also some sort of gdb-server executable that we extracted > from deep within the bowels of of the Altera IDE. We had to write > some sort of wrapper for that to get it to run stand-alone and talk to > the USB byte-blaster thingy. > > Once we ditched the massive pile of Altera's garbage IDE, things went > much smoother. [Until, as the project neared completion, it became > obvious that the performance of the NIOS2 was nowhere near what was > promised, and the whole thing was abandoned.] > > The hardware guys were, of course, chained to the Altera VHDL IDE > software for the duration -- presumably for heinous sins committed in > a previous life. >
Reply by ●December 6, 20182018-12-06
On 12/6/18 12:12 AM, Theo Markettos wrote:> with a single command, but that's not the biggest problem. > > (my current issue is Xilinx IP Integrator's idea of schematic capture from > the 1980s, complete with a mush of overlapping wires, and am trying to work > out whether I can build complex SoCs entirely from tcl - in this case I > think the GUI is so awful anything is better) >I actually like the graphical interface for putting complex top-level blocks together (at least until VHDL-2018 comes out with interfaces), and you can make it write bad but sufficient Tcl that you can lock down for CI. But have you run into the fact yet that, while the synthesis engine supports VHDL-2008, IP Integrator doesn't. You can't even write a thin wrapper, any VHDL-2008 anywhere in your design poisons the whole thing such that IPI can't work with it. -- Rob Gaddi, Highland Technology -- www.highlandtechnology.com Email address domain is currently out of order. See above to fix.
Reply by ●December 6, 20182018-12-06
In article <pubp3l$plq$1@dont-email.me>, Rob Gaddi <rgaddi@highlandtechnology.invalid> wrote:>On 12/6/18 12:12 AM, Theo Markettos wrote: >> with a single command, but that's not the biggest problem. >> >> (my current issue is Xilinx IP Integrator's idea of schematic capture from >> the 1980s, complete with a mush of overlapping wires, and am trying to work >> out whether I can build complex SoCs entirely from tcl - in this case I >> think the GUI is so awful anything is better) >> > >I actually like the graphical interface for putting complex top-level >blocks together (at least until VHDL-2018 comes out with interfaces), >and you can make it write bad but sufficient Tcl that you can lock down >for CI. > >But have you run into the fact yet that, while the synthesis engine >supports VHDL-2008, IP Integrator doesn't. You can't even write a thin >wrapper, any VHDL-2008 anywhere in your design poisons the whole thing >such that IPI can't work with it.We have a fairly straightforward build process (makefiles, and TCL) for our Xilinx FPGAs using non-project mode TCL. We do nightly builds on all our FPGAs - the current build list is ~40 FPGAs. For Xilinx IP we struggle up front to use the F#@#$F IP integrator or other GUIs to generate an example project. Then we reverse engineer the RTL that's usually under the covers, and use that directly. Everything else is thrown out. We've typed up a "Just the RTL" document which we've given to Xilinx to explain why we do this. After the time spent on the up-front reverse engineering, things work fine - never having to open the darned Xilinx IDE again. This thread gives make me nod my head (in a misery-loves-company sort of way) in that I see you software folks are basically doing the same thing. The absolute WORST part of the Xilinx flows is in their MPSoC designs and configuring boot-loaders and rootfs images. Here one must use their awful 80s style schematic capture code to configure the bootloader, and initial images. Yes, schematic capture to design software. They even crypto-sign the intermediate files (HDF) to prevent engineers from trying to create a more sane flow. Absolute insanity... Regards, Mark
Reply by ●December 6, 20182018-12-06
Rob Gaddi <rgaddi@highlandtechnology.invalid> wrote:> I actually like the graphical interface for putting complex top-level > blocks together (at least until VHDL-2018 comes out with interfaces), > and you can make it write bad but sufficient Tcl that you can lock down > for CI.That aspect is useful, however the idea that inputs go on the left and outptus on the right is a braindead hangover from analogue schematics. Typically a module has several interfaces - eg a bridge has an AXI slave, its clock and reset, and an AXI master with its clock and reset. That's two groups of each of AXI/clock/reset. So why put the clock/reset inputs on the left and the associated AXI master on the right? Why are there always wires crossing from one side of the component to the other? It's fine on a small design, but it's a nightmare on a complicate design. My current Intel Qsys design has about 40 components (mostly a lot of bridges of various kinds) in 4 levels of hierarchy, which would be a complete mess to represent in a inputs=left, outputs=right fashion.> But have you run into the fact yet that, while the synthesis engine > supports VHDL-2008, IP Integrator doesn't. You can't even write a thin > wrapper, any VHDL-2008 anywhere in your design poisons the whole thing > such that IPI can't work with it.I'm mostly composing generated IP, so avoid at least this problem... Theo
Reply by ●December 6, 20182018-12-06
Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:> I spent some time working with a NIOS2 core on an Altera > Cyclone-something-or-other. In the beginning, somebody got conned > into using the Altera tools for doing software development. As > expected, they were horrendous. It was Eclipse with a bunch of > plugins.It wasn't just any Eclipse, it was a fork of Eclipse from 2005. Eclipse itself got a lot better, Altera's didn't. I inherited a teaching lab which used Altera Eclipse on NIOS2, but I'd find I'd always have to revert to the command line to work out what was actually going on. When I rewrote the lab (and we moved away from NIOS to RISC-V), I junked the IDE and went with terminals and Makefile-based development - on the basis that it's something that students should be exposed to at some point in their careers, and it makes debugging their code a lot more sane from our point of via. They still drive Quartus via the GUI (because students start not knowing what an FPGA is, and it's easier for them to understand what's happening via the GUI) but Modelsim they mostly drive through pre-supplied scripts, given Modelsim's non-intuitive GUI. Theo
Reply by ●December 6, 20182018-12-06
On 06/12/2018 19:46, Theo Markettos wrote:> Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote: >> I spent some time working with a NIOS2 core on an Altera >> Cyclone-something-or-other. In the beginning, somebody got conned >> into using the Altera tools for doing software development. As >> expected, they were horrendous. It was Eclipse with a bunch of >> plugins. > > It wasn't just any Eclipse, it was a fork of Eclipse from 2005. Eclipse > itself got a lot better, Altera's didn't.Yes, manufacturers' IDE's used to be done that way. They'd take a fork of Eclipse and modify it to fit their uses. And that meant you always had an old version of Eclipse, and often one that didn't work with other useful plugins (such as for version control systems). It also often meant that you were stuck on Windows. These days, they are invariably organised as plugins for standard Eclipse. That means that updates are much more regular - each release of the tools usually builds on a relatively new version of Eclipse.> > I inherited a teaching lab which used Altera Eclipse on NIOS2, but I'd find > I'd always have to revert to the command line to work out what was actually > going on. When I rewrote the lab (and we moved away from NIOS to RISC-V), I > junked the IDE and went with terminals and Makefile-based development - on > the basis that it's something that students should be exposed to at some > point in their careers, and it makes debugging their code a lot more sane > from our point of via. They still drive Quartus via the GUI (because > students start not knowing what an FPGA is, and it's easier for them to > understand what's happening via the GUI) but Modelsim they mostly drive > through pre-supplied scripts, given Modelsim's non-intuitive GUI. > > Theo >