Installing a Xilinx FPGA environment for an Ubuntu-based machine

Installing Vivado

• Vivado Design Suite - HLx Editions - 2019.2 for the latest version: https://www.xilinx.com/support/download.html
• Tutorial available here: : https://www.dropbox.com/s/sgxhb08tcwuj9ko/Download_%26_Install_VIVADO_On_Ubuntu_July_3.pdf?dl=0
• On recent Ubuntu versions, please install libtinfo and libncurses or you may get stuck in the final setup step: https://support.xilinx.com/s/question/0D52E00006iHjbcSAC/vivado-20211-installation-hangs-at-generating-installed-device-list?language=en_US

License

• Infos available in another note.
• However, some families don’t need a license file 😉

Pre-configuration

Before executing Vivado, a few things to be aware of:

• Add this line in your $HOME/.bashrc (amongst other things, this script add binaries to PATH) :

  1	source /opt/Xilinx/Vivado/2018.2/settings64.sh # Modify the path to Vivado if needed

• Now, Vivado could be executed with the command: vivado

• It may be easier to have write rights on the Vivado install directory:

  1	chown -R $USER /opt/Xilinx

• Board drivers may be installed with scripts at /opt/Xilinx/Vivado/2018.3/data/xicom/cable_drivers/lin64/install_script

“Hello World” tutorial for Zedboard and Nexys4

• For the Zedboard: https://gitlab.com/pcotret/hello-zedboard Without going into details, it allows the user to compile a first design and verifies that the user can talk with the board.
• For the Nexys4: https://reference.digilentinc.com/learn/programmable-logic/tutorials/nexys-4-ddr-programming-guide/start#tutorial

VHDL simulation

Vivado includes a VHDL simulator which seems not optimal to me. Furthermore, for a quick simulation of a tiny component, it may be interesting to get a simulator without all the FPGA vendor layer. Modelsim is a well-known solution:

• Problem #1 : Modelsim is usually included in a bundle with other tools.
• Problem #2 : Modelsim isn’t very 64-bits friendly

Here is a note to set up Modelsim on a 64-bit Ubuntu machine.