Electronics > Beginners

Online FPGA simulator?

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Yansi:
FPGA kits from china may go as low as $10.

If you want very cheap but yetadult FPGA, search for Cyclone II devices.

rstofer:
Here is a free simulator

http://ghdl.free.fr/

Berni:
Simulation is not that useful for simulating entire huge designs, it is for modules.

The simulation in HDL tends to be used more like unit tests in C++ programming. You just take one reasonably small self contained module of HDL code and write a test bench to exercise it. The modules being small makes it much easier to write a testbench for because the module doesn't have a massive number of complex states you have to exercise. If you are making a USB PHY you don't try to emulate an entire USB host to connect it to. You would just feed data trough it and then have the testbench decode that raw bits on the USB pins back out to compare if it matches. Other times you might use two of the modules under test to talk to each other. Like when i was working on a CAN controller i simply connected two of them together on a "virtual CAN network" so that i could watch them talk back and forth to each other on the bus rather than implementing a whole CAN device in my testbench for it to talk to.

Once all the modules are tested individually you can then stick them together and run it in a real FPGA to test it. If you find a problem with the interaction of two modules but after many hours of debugging still have no idea why it breaks, then you can go and stick those modules together in a simulator and exercise them to reproduce the problem and step trough the code to figure out why it happens.

Simulators are very useful for FPGA design, but they won't teach you anything more than VHDL/Verilog syntax and a bit of binary. It has to be stuck into a real FPGA chip at some point to experience the true challenges and pitfalls of FPGA design.

emece67:
.

james_s:
I think what it comes down to is if you want to do this professionally then being proficient with simulation and the latest tools is mandatory. You might not always simulate everything but you need to know how to do it and when it makes sense to do so.

If you're doing it as a hobby then the right approach is the one that works for you, as long as you're having fun then you're doing it right. I still think it's worth learning how to use the simulator because it's another tool to have on your belt when faced with a problem but I admittedly rarely use it myself. I'm more of the "build it and see what happens" type.

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