AR# 1626: Foundation Simulator: Unknown outputs on 3K VHDL/ABEL/schematic design
AR# 1626
Foundation Simulator: Unknown outputs on 3K VHDL/ABEL/schematic design
Description
If your design meets ALL of the following criteria, you may see X's (unknowns) in your Functional Simulation:
1. Target device XC3x00/A/L 2. Mixed-mode schematic and VHDL/ABEL 3. Design contains XBLOX components (XBLOX may be inferred by the XVHDL compiler)
The reason the X's are appearing on the schematic is due to EQN symbols being present in the simulation netlist. EQN's are not simulatable.
The IMPROVEX program inserts these EQN symbols into the XNF netlist.
A functionally equivalent netlist (.XAS) is also created, which uses standard gates instead of EQN's, and is normally used for functional simulation.
In the case where a design contains XBLOX, and top-level design file is a schematic, the XNF file, instead of the XAS file, will be merged into the functional simulation netlist. This means that the EQN symbols will still be present in the simulated netlist, and therefore X's will appear.
There are a few ways to get around this problem.
解决方案
1
Since IMPROVEX is the program that inserts the EQN's, you can turn IMPROVEX off before performing functional simulation.
After functional simulation is complete, and you are ready to implement the design, re-synthesize the VHDL with IMPROVEX turned on.
To turn IMPROVEX off: In the HDL Editor, choose Synthesis -> Options. Deselect Improvex.
2
Make sure that there are no XBLOX components in the design. This means having no XBLOX on the schematic, and also turning off XBLOX in the Synthesis -> Options dialog (in the HDL Editor) so that the XVHDL compiler will not infer XBLOX components.
You can turn off XBLOX inference just for the purposes of functional simulation, and then turn it back on when you are ready to implement the design with the XACT Design Manager.
3
You can manually replace the synthesized XNF file with the XAS file. Rename the .XAS file to .XNF. The file which is simulated will still be the .XNF, but now it will not have EQN's in it.
If you backup the original XNF file, you can then restore it when you are ready to implement the design. This eliminates the need to re-synthesize the code.