Requirements

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The PoC-Library comes with some scripts to ease most of the common tasks, like running testbenches or generating IP cores. We choose to use Python 3 as a platform independent scripting environment. All Python scripts are wrapped in Bash or PowerShell scripts, to hide some platform specifics of Darwin, Linux or Windows.

Common requirements:

Programming Languages and Runtime Environments:
Synthesis tool chains:
  • Altera Quartus II ≥ 13.0 or
  • Altera Quartus Prime ≥ 15.1 or
  • Intel Quartus Prime ≥ 16.1 or
  • Lattice Diamond ≥ 3.6 or
  • Xilinx ISE 14.7 [1] or
  • Xilinx Vivado ≥ 2016.3 [2]
Simulation tool chains
  • Aldec Active-HDL (or Student Edition) or
  • Aldec Active-HDL Lattice Edition or
  • Mentor Graphics ModelSim PE (or Student Edition) or
  • Mentor Graphics ModelSim SE or
  • Mentor Graphics ModelSim Altera Edition or
  • Mentor Graphics QuestaSim or
  • Xilinx ISE Simulator 14.7 or
  • Xilinx Vivado Simulator ≥ 2016.3 [3] or
  • GHDL ≥ 0.34dev and GTKWave ≥ 3.3.70

Linux specific requirements:

Debian and Ubuntu specific:
  • bash is configured as /bin/sh (read more)
    dpkg-reconfigure dash

Optional Tools on Linux:

Git
The command line tools to manage Git repositories. It’s possible to extend the shell prompt with Git information.
SmartGit
A Git client to handle complex Git flows in a GUI.
Generic Colouriser (grc) ≥ 1.9
Colorizes outputs of foreign scripts and programs. GRC is hosted on GitHub The latest *.deb installation packages can be downloaded here.

Mac OS specific requirements:

Bash ≥ 4.3
Mac OS is shipped with Bash 3.2. Use Homebrew to install an up-to-date Bash
brew install bash
coreutils
Mac OS’ readlink program has a different behavior than the Linux version. The coreutils package installs a GNU readlink clone called greadlink.
brew install coreutils

Optional Tools on Mac OS:

Git
The command line tools to manage Git repositories. It’s possible to extend the shell prompt with Git information.
SmartGit or SourceTree
A Git client to handle complex Git flows in a GUI.
Generic Colouriser (grc) ≥ 1.9
Colorizes outputs of foreign scripts and programs. GRC is hosted on GitHub
brew install Grc

Windows specific requirements:

PowerShell
  • Allow local script execution (read more)
    PS> Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
  • PowerShell ≥ 5.0 (recommended)
    PowerShell 5.0 is shipped since Windows 10. It is a part if the Windows Management Framework 5.0 (WMF). Windows 7 and 8/8.1 can be updated to WMF 5.0. The package does not include PSReadLine, which is included in the Windows 10 PowerShell environment. Install PSReadLine manually:
    PS> Install-Module PSReadline.
  • PowerShell 4.0
    PowerShell is shipped with Windows since Vista. If the required version not already included in Windows, it can be downloaded from Microsoft.com: WMF 4.0

Optional Tools on Windows:

PowerShell ≥ 4.0
  • PSReadLine replaces the command line editing experience in PowerShell for versions 3 and up.
  • PowerShell Community Extensions (PSCX) ≥ 3.2
    The latest PSCX can be downloaded from PowerShellGallery
    PS> Install-Module Pscx
    Note: PSCX ≥ 3.2.1 is required for PowerShell ≥ 5.0.
Git (MSys-Git)
The command line tools to manage Git repositories.
SmartGit or SourceTree
A Git client to handle complex Git flows in a GUI.
posh-git
PowerShell integration for Git
PS> Install-Module posh-git

Footnotes

[1]Xilinx discontinued ISE since Oct. 2013. The last release was 14.7.
[2]Due to numerous bugs in the Xilinx Vivado Synthesis (incl. 2016.1), PoC can offer only a restricted Vivado support. See PoC’s Vivado branch for a set of workarounds. The list of issues is documented on the Known Issues page.
[3]Due to numerous bugs in the Xilinx Simulator (incl. 2016.1), PoC can offer only a restricted Vivado support. The list of issues is documented on the Known Issues page.