Vivado/Vitis 2020.2 is out

[asmi]

Full changelist is here: https://www.xilinx.com/products/design-tools/vivado/vivado-whats-new.html
In my view, the most important changes are:

Revision Control Improvements

• New directory structure separating sources from output products
• BD/IP output products are no longer placed in the project.srcs directory.
• All output products reside in the project.gen directory parallel to the project.srcs.

IP Caching improvements​

• Ability to create and use Read-Only zipped IP Caches ​
• Zipped Cached can be pointed to and need not be unzipped

So it looks like projects can finally be added to source control without usual dances around tcl scripts! If it really works (didn't try it yet, just finished installation), that would be a major step forward!

[ejeffrey]

This is fantastic even if it is absurd this is news in 2020.

[james_s]

I've wondered why that hasn't been a standard feature for years, or if I just don't know how to use it. At some point I ended up writing a python script to pull all the source files out of a Quartus project directory and zip them up.

[SiliconWizard]

Dang, I reinstalled 2020.1 lately. Now it's time for another huge download!

[asmi]

Dang, I reinstalled 2020.1 lately. Now it's time for another huge download!

You can have them installed side-by-side if you want or need. My Kintex-7 325T device license is only good up to 2020.1, so I have to keep it (at least until I get another license somehow).

[DiTBho]

Do I have to uninstall 2020.1 and then install the 2020.2? Or can I update my 2020.1?
I Just need support for Spartan7, but I seriously appreciate the new directory structure.

[asmi]

Do I have to uninstall 2020.1 and then install the 2020.2? Or can I update my 2020.1?
I Just need support for Spartan7, but I seriously appreciate the new directory structure.

No, like I said, you can install multiple versions side-by-side, and each of them will work independently of others.
I usually keep at least two versions installed - the current one, and the previous one - in case a new bug would be found in the current version which would prevent me from continuing my work. TBH that never happened to me, but I'd like to be safe. SSDs are cheap nowadays, and other than space there is no other downsides to having multiple versions.
So install the 2020.2 first, and if you're happy with it, you can uninstall 2020.1.

[Fred27]

You can save a lot of space in a Vivado installation if you uncheck "Ultrascale" and "Ultrascale+" support (unless you are using these high end devices of course).

[RoGeorge]

By the time of this posting and the number of the version, it seems like they are releasing twice a year.

A few years ago there used to be 4 released version each year, did they switched to only 2/year or is it just an anomaly?

[asmi]

A few years ago there used to be 4 released version each year, did they switched to only 2/year or is it just an anomaly?

They announced a while back that they are moving to a semi-annual release schedule. They want more time during iteration to work on larger features. Also - they didn't say that but I'm sure that's the real reason - 4 releases a year is likely too much of a moving target for support, as customer can stay on any version and decide to use it forever because that's how their licensing system works. For example, my projects for Genesys 2 board will be stuck forever on 2020.1 because that's the latest version I have a license for.

[james_s]

Even 2 releases a year is too frequent IMO, I get annoyed by the yearly releases of some software. I can see releasing bug fixes but I wouldn't release an entire new version more than once every couple of years unless it coincides with the release of new parts that need to be supported.

[SiliconWizard]

You can save a lot of space in a Vivado installation if you uncheck "Ultrascale" and "Ultrascale+" support (unless you are using these high end devices of course).

Yep, that's what I do. Still huge though.

Just looked at the web installer - which is just supposed to itself download the required files - the one for 2020.2 is now 250MB when for 2020.1 it was 68MB (yes both Win 64 bit). What gives?

[asmi]

Just looked at the web installer - which is just supposed to itself download the required files - the one for 2020.2 is now 250MB when for 2020.1 it was 68MB (yes both Win 64 bit). What gives?

They apparently included Petalinux installer and some other things into "unified installer". Or just added more pictures and videos to display in the installation window (which nobody ever looks at).

[Someone]

Even 2 releases a year is too frequent IMO, I get annoyed by the yearly releases of some software. I can see releasing bug fixes but I wouldn't release an entire new version more than once every couple of years unless it coincides with the release of new parts that need to be supported.

4/year was mostly bug fix already. But possibly to reduce support headaches it was bundled with new devices and IP upgrades/additions as a fixed release so there were fewer possible configurations out in the wild.

[SiliconWizard]

Alright. Installed it.
Foreword: I'm still on Win 7/64. Previous versions of Vivado up to 2020.1 worked fine.

I know Xilinx seem to say they only support Win 10. This time, this seems to be... for sure. Vivado 2020.2 doesn't even launch on Win 7. I'm stuck. Good job!
Details: when launching Vivado, nothing seems to happen. After a while, I get a message box saying "Error when launching ......\vivado.bat: Launcher time out".
I tried Vivado TCL shell: the console spits out some errors, so I don't know how likely the command-line tools are going to work either. Not very familiar using them directly though.

If anyone here has managed to make it work in Win 7, please let me know.