OK Xilinx users, it's time I was let in on the joke...

I've had it up to the eyeballs with Xilinx tools now. I'm seriously ready
to go postal in the lobby of Xilinx HQ. I don't expect perfection but this
really is beyond a joke.

Can someone please put me out of my misery, and finally admit that you
have _all_ been having me on for the past few years now! :O ...that it has
all been an elaborate hoax instigated by someone I offended in a past
life. ...that a team of engineers has been working for years to produce an
IDE that crashes randomly, and steadfastly refuses to launch tools on
Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons? ...working for years on a
synthesizer that removes random bits of logic, or sits spinning in an
infinite loop on an entity that works in another project? ...that corrupts
my project file bi-monthly.

And worst of all - _you_ lot, telling me that Xilinx actually works, and
that you _can_ use it for more than flashing LEDs on the Spartan starter
kit. And I was gullible enough to believe you! :O :(

I've seen the light. You _cannot_ convince me that it is possible to
produce a commercial product in silicon using these tools. Period.

Regards,

-- 
Mark McDougall, Engineer
Virtual Logic Pty Ltd, <http://www.vl.com.au>
21-25 King St, Rockdale, 2216
Ph: +612-9599-3255 Fax: +612-9599-3266

On Nov 6, 8:14=A0am, Mark McDougall <ma...@vl.com.au> wrote:
> I've had it up to the eyeballs with Xilinx tools now. I'm seriously ready
> to go postal in the lobby of Xilinx HQ. I don't expect perfection but thi=
s
> really is beyond a joke.
>
> Can someone please put me out of my misery, and finally admit that you
> have _all_ been having me on for the past few years now! :O ...that it ha=
s
> all been an elaborate hoax instigated by someone I offended in a past
> life. ...that a team of engineers has been working for years to produce a=
n
> IDE that crashes randomly, and steadfastly refuses to launch tools on
> Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons? ...working for years on a
> synthesizer that removes random bits of logic, or sits spinning in an
> infinite loop on an entity that works in another project? ...that corrupt=
s
> my project file bi-monthly.
>
> And worst of all - _you_ lot, telling me that Xilinx actually works, and
> that you _can_ use it for more than flashing LEDs on the Spartan starter
> kit. And I was gullible enough to believe you! :O :(
>
> I've seen the light. You _cannot_ convince me that it is possible to
> produce a commercial product in silicon using these tools. Period.
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> Mark McDougall, Engineer
> Virtual Logic Pty Ltd, <http://www.vl.com.au>
> 21-25 King St, Rockdale, 2216
> Ph: +612-9599-3255 Fax: +612-9599-3266

Mark,

you are taking it one level higher than I, I think i have said in
public
years ago that Xilinx has totally lost control over its software
development
and that their tools would come "completly unuseable" by the time 40nm
FPGA's come out to the market (unless they FIX their software
development flow!)

well Xilinx 40nm FPGA's are not yet on stock at digikey, so based on
that
and on my prediction Xilinx has still time to reach the complete
useless
status with their software

Antti

On Nov 6, 1:14=A0pm, Mark McDougall <ma...@vl.com.au> wrote:
> I've had it up to the eyeballs with Xilinx tools now. I'm seriously ready
> to go postal in the lobby of Xilinx HQ. I don't expect perfection but thi=
s
> really is beyond a joke.

...

> I've seen the light. You _cannot_ convince me that it is possible to
> produce a commercial product in silicon using these tools. Period.
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> Mark McDougall, Engineer


Hi Mark,

I know these things can be really frustrating, but since IDE/EDK
11 I must say I have been quite happy. I should note that I am
a Linux user, and don't have the traditional Windows crap to deal
with.

I am now using 11.3, and my only concern is when they will force
me use the software SDK next release ... that's something I don't
look forward too ...

Perhaps if you can try to describe your problem in greater detail,
somebody might have a suggestion. Could you be running out of
memory or disk space ?

Cheers,
rudi

"Mark McDougall" <markm@vl.com.au> wrote in message 
news:7JmdnUcpQOJNI27XnZ2dnUVZ_qadnZ2d@westnet.com.au...
> I've had it up to the eyeballs with Xilinx tools now. I'm seriously ready
> to go postal in the lobby of Xilinx HQ. I don't expect perfection but this
> really is beyond a joke.
>
> Can someone please put me out of my misery, and finally admit that you
> have _all_ been having me on for the past few years now! :O ...that it has
> all been an elaborate hoax instigated by someone I offended in a past
> life. ...that a team of engineers has been working for years to produce an
> IDE that crashes randomly, and steadfastly refuses to launch tools on
> Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons? ...working for years on a
> synthesizer that removes random bits of logic, or sits spinning in an
> infinite loop on an entity that works in another project? ...that corrupts
> my project file bi-monthly.
>
> And worst of all - _you_ lot, telling me that Xilinx actually works, and
> that you _can_ use it for more than flashing LEDs on the Spartan starter
> kit. And I was gullible enough to believe you! :O :(
>
> I've seen the light. You _cannot_ convince me that it is possible to
> produce a commercial product in silicon using these tools. Period.
>
> Regards,
>
> -- 
> Mark McDougall, Engineer
> Virtual Logic Pty Ltd, <http://www.vl.com.au>
> 21-25 King St, Rockdale, 2216
> Ph: +612-9599-3255 Fax: +612-9599-3266

Yep, using EDA software is like using a small leaking boot trying to cross a 
violent river. All EDA software has bugs and some of them are intelligent enough 
to strike when you stress level is at its maximum. Unfortunately this will never 
change since software is getting more complex, market pressure is increasing, 
engineers expectations are increasing, weather is getting worse, mentality to 
produce quality work is diminishing, more complex devices, more annoying TV 
commercials etc etc.

The only mild remedy against this whirlpool of misery is good technical support. 
Luckily I found that Xilinx has good support so logs those bugs, make sure they 
fix them, use gotomeeting/webex/etc to show what is happening if you can't send 
out any code. If they don't respond than splash out on 
newsgroups/facebook/linkin/blogs/twitter or whatever the communication flavour 
of the month is. I am sure that no EDA vendor can handle a constant stream of 
bad publicity.

As they say, life is a bitch and then you have to use EDA tools......

Hans
www.ht-lab.com 

On Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:14:21 +1100
Mark McDougall <markm@vl.com.au> wrote:

> I've had it up to the eyeballs with Xilinx tools now. I'm seriously
> ready to go postal in the lobby of Xilinx HQ. I don't expect
> perfection but this really is beyond a joke.
> 
> Can someone please put me out of my misery, and finally admit that you
> have _all_ been having me on for the past few years now! :O ...that
> it has all been an elaborate hoax instigated by someone I offended in
> a past life. ...that a team of engineers has been working for years
> to produce an IDE that crashes randomly, and steadfastly refuses to
> launch tools on Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons? ...working
> for years on a synthesizer that removes random bits of logic, or sits
> spinning in an infinite loop on an entity that works in another
> project? ...that corrupts my project file bi-monthly.
> 
> And worst of all - _you_ lot, telling me that Xilinx actually works,
> and that you _can_ use it for more than flashing LEDs on the Spartan
> starter kit. And I was gullible enough to believe you! :O :(
> 
> I've seen the light. You _cannot_ convince me that it is possible to
> produce a commercial product in silicon using these tools. Period.
> 

I, at least, gave up on the ise wrapper about a year and a half ago -
it just didn't do it, anymore. Instead I drive the flow (xst, map, par,
etc) from a single makefile, and a short one at that - maybe 20 lines. 

The things I know im missing out on is 1. the pretty XML reports and 2.
COREgen etc hook-ins. The former I can survive without, as its
easier to grep through plain text reports anyway, and the latter I
typically only need to run once anyway, at which point I suffer ise
long enough to move the generated files somewhere sensible. 

Just my experience. 

//Oscar

Mark McDougall wrote:
> I've had it up to the eyeballs with Xilinx tools now. I'm seriously ready
> to go postal in the lobby of Xilinx HQ. I don't expect perfection but this
> really is beyond a joke.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I've seen the light. You _cannot_ convince me that it is possible to
> produce a commercial product in silicon using these tools. Period.
> 
> Regards,
> 

If it is any solace, the Mentor schematic capture and PCB routing tools 
are much worse. In addition to continuous license issues, crashes, 
version compatibility problems, and file corruption, they produce 
unreliable output. I now have to manually check every trace on a 10 
layer PCB with multiple BGA packages ever since we discovered that the 
tools can randomly delete nets from a fully routed board without warning.

At lease ISE only causes frustration and project delays. I've never had 
to scrap thousands of USD worth of materials because of them.

Curt

On Nov 6, 10:54=A0am, Curt Johnson <curt.john...@dicombox.net> wrote:
> Mark McDougall wrote:
> > I've had it up to the eyeballs with Xilinx tools now. I'm seriously rea=
dy
> > to go postal in the lobby of Xilinx HQ. I don't expect perfection but t=
his
> > really is beyond a joke.
>
> > <snip>
>
> > I've seen the light. You _cannot_ convince me that it is possible to
> > produce a commercial product in silicon using these tools. Period.
>
> > Regards,
>
> If it is any solace, the Mentor schematic capture and PCB routing tools
> are much worse. In addition to continuous license issues, crashes,
> version compatibility problems, and file corruption, they produce
> unreliable output. I now have to manually check every trace on a 10
> layer PCB with multiple BGA packages ever since we discovered that the
> tools can randomly delete nets from a fully routed board without warning.
>
> At lease ISE only causes frustration and project delays. I've never had
> to scrap thousands of USD worth of materials because of them.

The reason for using commercial tools is supposed to be the great
support and the lack of serious bugs...  so if you don't like your
expensive layout tools, why use them?  I used FreePCB on my last
project and found it very suitable.  I am sure there are some things
that you need to do manually that expensive tools might do
automatically, but hand checking all the nets is not one of them.

Not trying to be smart, this is a serious question.

Rick

On Nov 5, 10:14=A0pm, Mark McDougall <ma...@vl.com.au> wrote:
> I've had it up to the eyeballs with Xilinx tools now. I'm seriously ready
> to go postal in the lobby of Xilinx HQ. I don't expect perfection but thi=
s
> really is beyond a joke.
>
> Can someone please put me out of my misery, and finally admit that you
> have _all_ been having me on for the past few years now! :O ...that it ha=
s
> all been an elaborate hoax instigated by someone I offended in a past
> life. ...that a team of engineers has been working for years to produce a=
n
> IDE that crashes randomly, and steadfastly refuses to launch tools on
> Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons? ...working for years on a
> synthesizer that removes random bits of logic, or sits spinning in an
> infinite loop on an entity that works in another project? ...that corrupt=
s
> my project file bi-monthly.
>
> And worst of all - _you_ lot, telling me that Xilinx actually works, and
> that you _can_ use it for more than flashing LEDs on the Spartan starter
> kit. And I was gullible enough to believe you! :O :(
>
> I've seen the light. You _cannot_ convince me that it is possible to
> produce a commercial product in silicon using these tools. Period.
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> Mark McDougall, Engineer
> Virtual Logic Pty Ltd, <http://www.vl.com.au>
> 21-25 King St, Rockdale, 2216
> Ph: +612-9599-3255 Fax: +612-9599-3266

I thought that they fixed the problem by using the "entitle now"
software for downloading.  ;)

If you can't download the software, you can't find the bugs.  And even
if you -think- you've downloaded it, they can always claim that you
had a network issue.

Sadly, Xilinx is writing software that Americans will buy.  Features
are more important than robustness.  Flash is more important than
function.  Sigh.

AL

PS:  I too have given up on the GUI.  I use it -once- per project to
get the initial setup, the rest of the time I use makefiles and
scripts.

On Fri, 6 Nov 2009 13:01:19 +0000
Oscar Almer <o.almer@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:14:21 +1100
> Mark McDougall <markm@vl.com.au> wrote:
> 
> > I've had it up to the eyeballs with Xilinx tools now. I'm seriously
> > ready to go postal in the lobby of Xilinx HQ. I don't expect
> > perfection but this really is beyond a joke.
> > 
> > Can someone please put me out of my misery, and finally admit that
> > you have _all_ been having me on for the past few years
> > now! :O ...that it has all been an elaborate hoax instigated by
> > someone I offended in a past life. ...that a team of engineers has
> > been working for years to produce an IDE that crashes randomly, and
> > steadfastly refuses to launch tools on Tuesday mornings and Friday
> > afternoons? ...working for years on a synthesizer that removes
> > random bits of logic, or sits spinning in an infinite loop on an
> > entity that works in another project? ...that corrupts my project
> > file bi-monthly.
> > 
> > And worst of all - _you_ lot, telling me that Xilinx actually works,
> > and that you _can_ use it for more than flashing LEDs on the Spartan
> > starter kit. And I was gullible enough to believe you! :O :(
> > 
> > I've seen the light. You _cannot_ convince me that it is possible to
> > produce a commercial product in silicon using these tools. Period.
> > 
> 
> I, at least, gave up on the ise wrapper about a year and a half ago -
> it just didn't do it, anymore. Instead I drive the flow (xst, map,
> par, etc) from a single makefile, and a short one at that - maybe 20
> lines. 
> 
> The things I know im missing out on is 1. the pretty XML reports and
> 2. COREgen etc hook-ins. The former I can survive without, as its
> easier to grep through plain text reports anyway, and the latter I
> typically only need to run once anyway, at which point I suffer ise
> long enough to move the generated files somewhere sensible. 
> 
> Just my experience. 
> 
> //Oscar
> 

Hear hear.  I've had very little trouble with the backend Xilinx tools,
but the GUI is absolute rubbish.  Crashes constantly, takes PHENOMINAL
amounts of memory just to exist, and every release moves all of the
important options to somewhere new and exciting.  I looked into using
TCL instead, but that just hides things inside of more magic boxes.
Makefiles just work; I switched over around ISE 8 and have never
thought of regretting it.

-- 
Rob Gaddi, Highland Technology
Email address is currently out of order

rickman wrote:
> The reason for using commercial tools is supposed to be the great
> support and the lack of serious bugs...  so if you don't like your
> expensive layout tools, why use them?  I used FreePCB on my last
> project and found it very suitable.  I am sure there are some things
> that you need to do manually that expensive tools might do
> automatically, but hand checking all the nets is not one of them.
> 
> Not trying to be smart, this is a serious question.
> 
> Rick

Good question. Mostly inertia.

If FreePCB will import our libraries and designs, I'll check it out in a 
minute.

Maintenance is an issue. We are in the medical racket. Product lifetimes 
can be a dozen years or more. We are still shipping product with 
XC3142's in them. When parts go obsolete, we often need to quick turn a 
board to keep shipping product. That means either we keep the tools 
around for the duration, or find something that can read the files.

Most of my new designs are more or less 50% original and 50% cut and 
pasted from previous designs. It saves a bit of time not having to 
recreate parts and redraw schematics.

I've used Pads, Tango, Calay, Cadroid, Orcad, and a few other packages 
over the years. Some were better than others, but all of them had 
problems of one sort or another. I've kind of got to the point where if 
my PC doesn't catch fire after I install a new version, I consider it a 
victory.

Curt