Subversion Repositories openrisc_2011-10-31

Actel place and route environment

Backend flow post-synthesis through to programming file can be performed here.

The scripts are designed to run the Actel backend tools in batch/shell mode.

All make commands should be run in the run/ path.

Performing place and route:

If the settings in bin/Makefile are what is desired, then a simple

$ make all

will perform all steps from synthesis through to layout. The result will be the
.adb file located in the run/ path.

To alter the configuration (partially seen by running 'make print-config') 
inspect bin/Makefile to see the various options. To see the script generated
which is passed to the Actel Designer, run

$ make create-compile-par.tcl

while also setting all variables as desired on the command line, and inspect 
the resulting TCL file to ensure it is correct.

When running 'make all', the constraint SDC and PDC files will be automatically
generated by the script, and will be left in the run/ path.

Both PDC and SDC are dependent upon the defines in the RTL Verilog file 
design_defines.v - to see what modules and options are set in design_defines.v
run:

$ make print-defines

Among the printed information will be which modules where enabled, and the PDC
and SDCs are generated based on this.
See the main Makefile, bin/Makefile, and the rule for $(SDC_FILE) to add or
modify timing rules.

To print the configuration of the makefile (targeted FPGA part and family, tool
settings, and board I/O bonfiguration) run:

$ make print-config

PDC files:

The physical constraints generation system may seem overly compilcated to begin 
with, but is design to make it easy and simple to add additional board and 
module support, switch the design between boards, or modify existing 
configurations.

The physical constraints file generation starts with defining some variables 
with pin numbers, corresponding to the actual FPGA pins, depending on the FPGA 
board. At present, the only CPU board supported is the ORSoC CPU board pin out.
The variables assigned pin numbers are in the bin/orsoccpuboard.mkpins file. 
This file is design to be included by other files, wishing to use the ORSoC CPU 
board variables (pin numbers). The variables in the CPU board file are then 
used by other files, namely files which define uses for expansion pins on the 
CPU board. For example, the two headers, JP1 and JP6, and their associated 
variables from the ORSoC CPU board .mkpins file are used in the 
orsocexpboard.mkpins file. Support for other I/O boards could be added by 
creating a new .mkpins file, and creating a list of new, appropriate variable 
names corresponding to the pins from the CPU board (in the ORSoC CPU board's 
case, the JP1 and JP6 header pin variables.)

Finally, the variables for each actual I/O in the design must be assigned 
something. The .mkpinassigns do this. They tie together the CPU and any I/O 
board variable assigns, making it simple and easy to assign the variables used 
in the Makefile during PDC generation, to the variables created in the .mkpins 
files. The three main parts, then, the CPU board .mkpins file, expansion board 
.mkpins file, overall board .mkpinassigns file and Makefile PDC rule are the 
components to generating a PDC.

Of course, a .mkpinassigns file can also simply contain raw pin numbers for 
each I/O port pin, or include a single .mkpins file with just a single board 
definition. The idea is it's highly modular and configurable before doing the 
final define of each I/O port's signal.

Every possible I/O from the design has an entry in the $(PDC_FILE) rule of the 
Actel backend PAR Makefile. Almost all are surrounded by if statements checking 
for the corresponding module's inclusion in the design.

Set the overall I/O config .mkpinassigns file by setting BOARD_CONFIG at make 
time. The default is orsoccpuexpio.mkpinassigns. All these files should reside 
in the bin/ path.

$ make all BOARD_CONFIG=mynew.mkpinassigns

To test the generated PDC file, do

$ make pdc_file BOARD_CONFIG=mynew.mkpinassigns