netlist

Generated Netlists from PoC and IP Core Generators

The PoC-Library supports the generation of netlists from pre-configured vendor IP cores (e.g. Xilinx Core Generator) or from bundled and pre-configured PoC entities. This can be done by invoking PoC's Service Tool through the wrapper script: poc.[sh|ps1].

PoC supports the following tools:

• Altera Quartus II / Quartus Prime
• Lattice Diamond LSE
• Xilinx Core Generator 14.7 (corgen)
• Xilinx Synthesis Tool 14.7 (xst)

Planned tool support:

• Altera MegaFunction Wizard
• Xilinx Vivado Synth
• Xilinx Vivado IP Core Catalog

All Windows command line instructions are intended for Windows PowerShell, if not marked otherwise. So executing the following instructions in Windows Command Prompt (cmd.exe) won't function or result in errors! See the [Requirements][wiki:requirements] wiki page on where to download or update PowerShell.

1 Common Explanations

A netlist is always compiled for a specific platform. In case of an FPGA it's the exact device name. The name can be passed by --device=<DEVICE> command line option to the script. An alternative is the --board=<BOARD> option. For a list of well-known board names, PoC knows the soldered FPGA device.

The service tool offers several common options:

Common Option           Description
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-h   --help             Print a short help
-q                      Quiet-mode (print nothing)
-v                      Print more messages
-d                      Debug mode (print everything)
-D                      Debug wrapper script

2 Compiling pre-configured Xilinx IP Cores (*.xco files) to Netlists

The PoC-Library is shipped with some pre-configured IP cores from Xilinx. These IP cores are shipped as *.xco files and need to be compiled to netlists (*.ngc files) and there auxillary files (*.ncf files; *.vhdl files; ...). IP core configuration files (e.g. *.xco) are stored as regular source files in the <PoCRoot>\src directory.

.\poc.ps1 [-q] [-v] [-d] coregen <PoC-Entity> [--device=<DEVICE>|--board=<BOARD>]

Use Case - Compiling all ChipScopeICON IP Cores

PoC has an abstraction layer PoC.xil.ChipScopeICON to abstract all possible Chipscope Integrated Controller (ICON) cores configurations in one VHDL module. An ICON can be configured with 1 to 15 ChipScope control ports. To use the abstraction layer it's required to pre-compile all 15 IP core variations.

The following example compiles the first IP core with 1 port for a Kintex-7 325T as soldered onto a KC705 board. The resulting netlist and auxillary files are copied to <PoCRoot>/netlist/XC7K325T-2FFG900/xil/. The Xilinx ISE tool flow requires an extension IP core search directory for XST and Translate (-sd option).

cd <PoCRoot>
.\poc.ps1 coregen PoC.xil.ChipScopeICON_1 --board=KC705

The compilation can be automated in a for-each loop for all IP cores:

cd <PoCRoot>
foreach ($i in 1..15)
{	.\poc.ps1 coregen PoC.xil.ChipScopeICON_$_ --board=KC705
}

3 Compiling pre-configured PoC IP Cores (bundle of VHDL files) to Netlists

Documentation is still incomplete

The IP core filelist file (.files) and the XST option file (.xst) are stored in the <PoCRoot>\xst directory.

.\poc.ps1 [-q] [-v] [-d] xst <PoC-Entity> [--device=<DEVICE>|--board=<BOARD>]

Use Case - Compiling a Gigabit Ethernet UDP/IP Stack for a KC705 board

PoC.net.stack.UDPv4

Documentation is still incomplete

The resulting netlist and auxillary files are copied to <PoCRoot>/netlist/XC7K325T-2FFG900/net/stack. The Xilinx ISE tool flow requires an extension IP core search directory for XST and Translate (-sd option).