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FPGA/ASIC Debugging environment, TotalScope:

This debug environment can be used for ASICs and FPGAs. It works on all FPGA families (Altera, Lattice, ... Xilinx) and ASIC technologies.

A teststructure is automatically inserted in the RTL. After Synthesis, Place and Route, register values are streamed out during the test. These register values are used to postsimulate a temporarily generated local model of the design. The signal values are dumped in a VCD file.

The data is uploaded from the FPGA/ASIC to the PC/workstation via the streamer. For Xilinx users, any download cable can be used instead.


From the user perspective it looks like a simulator. Signal selection can be done on RTL level, the "simulation" might need to be rerun again and the signals are displayed. Then other signals and time-zones of interests are selected and the process is repeated until the bug is found. The difference here is, that the "simulation" runs on the ASIC, FPGA stand-alone or FPGA based system prototyping system (running at for example 80 MHz) and true register behaviors are traced.

It is important to notice, that no re-synthesis needs to be done during the debugging process or due to debugging related issues at all.

All RTL-signals can be displayed, including registers, memory-content and non register signals (combinatorial signals). Also the type of the signals remains as defined (enumeration, arrays, records, ...). The signals are dumped in a VCD-file, which can be accessed by EDAptability's VCD viewer or any third party VCD viewer.

The clocks don't need to be controlled. The system can run freely and continuously and clocks can be driven from external as well. The postsimulation starts shortly before the user selected timeframe. The time between the start and the selected timeframe don't need to be simulated.

There is no direct impact on the timing behavior of the design and only a minor impact on the area.

EDAptability’s SynEDA TotalScope feature supports Solaris, Windows and Linux.

Please contact us, if you have any further questions regarding the product. We are always happy to hear from you.