I have been looking at the idea of implementing
the microcontroller
function into the FPGA using either Microblaze or NiosII. Does anyone
have
experience with these two products?How good is the software development
environment. Does it include breakpoints and examination of register and
memory variables? I do appriciate to tell me your experience with
Microblaze and NiosII.

spartan wrote:
> I have been looking at the idea of implementing the microcontroller
> function into the FPGA using either Microblaze or NiosII. Does anyone
> have
> experience with these two products?How good is the software development
> environment. Does it include breakpoints and examination of register and
> memory variables? I do appriciate to tell me your experience with
> Microblaze and NiosII.
> 
> 
Hi,

The report in 
http://www.gaisler.com/doc/Evaluation_of_synthesizable_CPU_cores.pdf 
might come handy to you at this point.

Regards,
Partha.

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 13:23:34 -0800, Partha Biswas
wrote:

> spartan wrote:
>> I have been looking at the idea of implementing the microcontroller
>> function into the FPGA using either Microblaze or NiosII. Does anyone
>> have
>> experience with these two products?How good is the software development
>> environment. Does it include breakpoints and examination of register and
>> memory variables? I do appriciate to tell me your experience with
>> Microblaze and NiosII.
>> 
>> 
> Hi,
> 
> The report in 
> http://www.gaisler.com/doc/Evaluation_of_synthesizable_CPU_cores.pdf 
> might come handy to you at this point.
> 
> Regards,
> Partha.

That report might give the OP some ideas about synthesizable cores in
general, but it has a lot of flaws ("portability" is judged by "how did I
get it running on my single Xilinx demo card"), and doesn't even mention
the NiosII.

I don't know about the Microblaze, but the Nios II comes with a
substantial software development environment based around Eclipse, with
gcc as the compiler and gdb for debugging (with Eclipse as the gui).  You
get full software breakpointing, a few hardware breakpoints, reading and
writing of memory and variables, and everything else you would expect from
a modern debugger.  You can buy extra tracing functionality (some using
internal fpga resources, others using external equipment) if you need it.

"spartan"
<s...@nospam.yahoo.ca> writes:

This not a NIOS-II Microblaze issue, but a related Altera SOPC-Builder
vs. Xilinx XPS issue. 

In SOPC-Builder you can select if you want to generate Verilog or
VHDL. Since I'm using Synopsys VCS for my simualtions I've used
Verilog as target. All the generated files are Verilog source files.

However, with Xilinx XPS it appears that only the top level module is
Verilog and it consists of several wrapper modules. The actual code
for the IP are written mostly in VHDL. Hence I can't use VCS for my
simulations (unless I spend several tens of thousands of dollars per
license to get the MX version). Alternatively, I'll have to do gate
level simulations only.

Is my understanding correct, or is there some kind of conversion I can
do in XPS?

Petter
-- 
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

"spartan"
<s...@nospam.yahoo.ca> wrote in message
news:<8...@localhost.talkaboutelectronicequipment.com>..
.
> I have been looking at the idea of implementing the microcontroller
> function into the FPGA using either Microblaze or NiosII. Does anyone
> have
> experience with these two products?How good is the software development
> environment. 

Both toolchains are based on GNU (GCC, binutils), so not many
differences.

NIOS II comes with eclipse (an IDE), but you can download that
separatly for MicroBlaze anyway,

> Does it include breakpoints and examination of register and
> memory variables? I do appriciate to tell me your experience with
> Microblaze and NiosII.

Both toolchains use GDB, so you get the same set of features.

Cheers,
Jon

"Jon Beniston" <j...@beniston.com> wrote in message 
news:e...@posting.google.com...
> "spartan" <s...@nospam.yahoo.ca> wrote in message 
>
news:<8...@localhost.talkaboutelectronicequipment.com>..
.
>> I have been looking at the idea of implementing the microcontroller
>> function into the FPGA using either Microblaze or NiosII. Does anyone
>> have
>> experience with these two products?How good is the software development
>> environment.
>
> Both toolchains are based on GNU (GCC, binutils), so not many
> differences.
>
> NIOS II comes with eclipse (an IDE), but you can download that
> separatly for MicroBlaze anyway,

From press release:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Platform Studio tool suite automates a host of architecture-level design 
steps and offers a powerful new software environment based on the 
industry-standard Eclipse integrated design environment (IDE). The Platform 
Studio 6.3i release supports the Xilinx processor solutions, including the 
MicroBlaze and immersed PowerPC cores.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
What does the download of eclipse buy you?

-Newman

>
>> Does it include breakpoints and examination of register and
>> memory variables? I do appriciate to tell me your experience with
>> Microblaze and NiosII.
>
> Both toolchains use GDB, so you get the same set of features.
>
> Cheers,
> Jon 

"Petter Gustad"
<n...@gustad.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:8...@filestore.home.gustad.com...
> "spartan" <s...@nospam.yahoo.ca> writes:
>
> This not a NIOS-II Microblaze issue, but a related Altera SOPC-Builder
> vs. Xilinx XPS issue.
>
> In SOPC-Builder you can select if you want to generate Verilog or
> VHDL. Since I'm using Synopsys VCS for my simualtions I've used
> Verilog as target. All the generated files are Verilog source files.
>
> However, with Xilinx XPS it appears that only the top level module is
> Verilog and it consists of several wrapper modules. The actual code
> for the IP are written mostly in VHDL. Hence I can't use VCS for my
> simulations (unless I spend several tens of thousands of dollars per
> license to get the MX version). Alternatively, I'll have to do gate
> level simulations only.
>
> Is my understanding correct, or is there some kind of conversion I can
> do in XPS?
>
> Petter

NO. There is not

the difference is in the way the IP cores are delivered.

SOPC ip cores are written in Perl and use special package "Europa"
to generate either VHDL or Verilog, so thats why it is possible to
choose either verilog or VHDL in SOPC

in EDK the IP cores are delivered in either VHDL or Verilog or BOTH
but mostly the IP cores are VHDL only.
Only in the case ALL the IP cores you are using are delivered BOTH
(that is both VHDL and Verilog versions are delivered) you can not
create a full verilog simulation model, as there is never a conversion
done from verilog to/from VHDL
if the IP core used as HDL that matches the desired simulaton language
it will be choosen, if it does not exist then resulting model will be mixed
language. As the primary language for EDK cores is VHDL so you
have no way to create full simulation model with pure verilog

gate level sim could do, but thats not always fun I guess

Antti

> > NIOS II comes with eclipse (an IDE),
but you can download that
> > separatly for MicroBlaze anyway,
> 
> From press release:
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> The Platform Studio tool suite automates a host of architecture-level design 
> steps and offers a powerful new software environment based on the 
> industry-standard Eclipse integrated design environment (IDE). The Platform 
> Studio 6.3i release supports the Xilinx processor solutions, including the 
> MicroBlaze and immersed PowerPC cores.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> What does the download of eclipse buy you?

I didn't realise they had included it with the EDK now. So nothing. 

Cheers,
Jon

"Antti Lukats" <a...@openchip.org> wrote in message 
news:cvn4ua$qm4$05$1...@news.t-online.com...
> ...
> the difference is in the way the IP cores are delivered.
>
> SOPC ip cores are written in Perl and use special package "Europa"
> to generate either VHDL or Verilog, so thats why it is possible to
> choose either verilog or VHDL in SOPC
>
>...
> Antti

I'd like to add that SOPC IP cores can be written in *at least* vhdl, 
verilog, or bdf.  You do not have to write your cores in Perl!

There is a wizard that imports your hdl/bdf and even generates a parameter 
wizard for your core if needed!

You can also just create a custom interface to a core by setting up the 
signals in a simple wizard then connecting them to the core in Quartus. 
That core then appears as a memory mapped peripheral.  Very simple.

We have cores integrated into our NiosII system using a mix of these 
methods.

Ken


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