Programming VHDL on Linux?

Question

Anyone knows good environment to program VHDL and simulate it (don't matter Xilinx or Altera) using Linux?

Answer 1

You're stuck with either vendors tools, which are spotty at best on Linux (though my experience with Alteras utilities are somewhat better than with ISE).

However, if all you want to do is run your testbed, not actually synthesize anything, ghdl will be of use.

Answer 2

As mentioned by Arpan (almost) every VHDL simulator is supported by Linux, but they are usually very expensive. Your best shot would be to use one of the following:

• Altera DS Web edition (Linux support has just been added) which comes with a free version of ModelSim.
• Symphony EDA Sonata 3.1 is available as a free version with limited support.
• Xilinx ISE which comes with Xilinxs own simulator: ISim.

Answer 3

If you prefer open source tools, look into http://www.cliftonlabs.com/vhdl/savant.html - vhdl does not have too many options in the FOSS space currently. If you are opting for vendor tools, all vendors would do Linux version of their simulators. Modelsim is a personal favorite due to the easy-to-debug features that it sports.

For a coding environment, I usually use VIM with vhdl syntax checkers turned on. Sigasi apparently has a commercial IDE with fancy stuff as automatic code completion, on the fly syntax check etc.

Let us know if you have further questions.

Arpan

Answer 4

Just to add an update to this: Xilinx Vivado has now been released with Linux support for ubuntu/debian and (I believe) redhat/centos.

The software is free for a range of the smaller devices and more common IP cores and includes a mostly decent simulator that is integrated into the tools and is also free.

It has a pretty steep learning curve, as do most of these tools, but as far as software in this industry goes, they've really done a good job with it.

Answer 5

For coding vhdl, Emacs with vhdl-mode is a must. You can use advanced edition functions, view the structure of designs, manage architectures and configurations. You can setup for multiple simulators.

I use the modelsim from Altera's Quartus web edition. Beware if you use a 64 bits Linux, this version of modelsim is 32 bits only.

Answer 6

There is now QUCS (http://qucs.sourceforge.net/) as well. It is open source and based on FreeHDL.

It can be used to design and simulate circuits using a graphical interface. And it can also simulate VHDL. Although for this you must also design the circuit components on the graphical area.

This video shows it clearly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RrQlzLsf18

I'm using the linux ppa on Debian Jessie and it works fine.

Answer 7

GHDL is a nice simulator for VHDL, and even works with some third-party libraries (for example, Xilinx UNISIMS).

If you combine it with gtkwave, you should have a full working VHDL simulator and waveform viewer.

GHDL also supports writing to .GHW waveforms, which are fantastic for small simulations, cause it does include (often) all of the signals on your design.

I've used them with standard RTL simulation, and also for post-synthesis simulation with Xilinx UNISIMs.

Both should be available in your Linux distro repository. If not, you can fetch them from:

GHDL: http://ghdl.free.fr/

GtkWave: http://gtkwave.sourceforge.net/