Requirements

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:

• Python 3 (≥ 3.5):

  • colorama

  • py-flags

  All Python requirements are listed in requirements.txt and can be installed via:
  sudo python3.5 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

Synthesis tool chains:

• Altera Quartus Prime ≥ 15.1 or

• Intel Quartus Prime ≥ 16.1 or

• Lattice Diamond ≥ 3.6 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 Vivado Simulator ≥ 2016.3 [3] or

• GHDL ≥ 5.1.1 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

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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.