Tips & Hints

Synplify Premier Software

Q. Are Floating Point components supported in Synplicity’s DesignWare compatible library?

A. Yes. Beginning with version 9.0 of the Synplify Premier software, the DesignWare compatible library will be enhanced to support Floating point components.

The following components are supported in the DesignWare library:

• DW_fp_addsub: Floating point adder/subtractor
• DW_fp_div: Floating point divider
• DW_fp_mult: Floating point multiplier
• DW_fp_flt2i: Floating point to integer converter
• DW_fp_i2flt: Integer to floating point converter

Note that for the above components, the precision format can be parameterized for only IEEE single or double precision.

Synplify Premier and Synplify Pro Software

Q. Are SystemVerilog's Enumerated Data Types supported?

A. Yes. Beginning with version 8.9 of the Synplify Pro and Synplify Premier software, SystemVerilog Enumberated Data Types are supported.

Enumerated data types allow variables and nets to be defined with a specific set of named values. The basic syntax for declaring an enumerated type is:

// a variable that has 3 legal values
enum {WAITE, LOAD, READY} State;

Enumerated types have a base data type, which by default is int (a 2-state, 32-bit type). By default, the first label in the enumerated list has a logic value of 0, and each subsequent label is incremented by one. In the example above, State is an int type, and WAITE, LOAD, and READY have 32-bit int values. WAITE is 0, LOAD is 1, and READY is 2.

You can specify an explicit base type to allow enumerated types to more specifically model the hardware.  For example:

// 2 enumerated variables with one-hot values
enum logic [2:0] {WAITE = 3’b001,LOAD = 3’b010, READY = 3’b100} State;

Q. Are SystemVerilog's unique case and priority case modifiers supported?

A. Yes. Beginning with version 9.0 of the Synplify Pro and Synplify Premier tools, the priority case and unique case modifiers are supported.

1) The "priority case" modifier indicates that all possible values have been given and that no additional hardware is needed to preserve signal values. This is similar to specifying the full_case directive along with a case statement.

For example:

Case (…) //full_case

is equivalent to

Priority Case (…)

2) The "unique case" modifier forces a parallel-multiplexed structure rather than a priority-encoded structure. This is similar to the parallel_case case directive.

For example:

Case (…) //parallel_case
…
endcase

is equivalent to

unique Case (…)
… default :…
endcase

3) The "unique case" modifier, without any default statement, is similar to having both the full_case and parallel_case directive specified. In other words, if you use both directives, the Synplify Pro or Synplify Premier tool assumes that all the possible values have been given and no extra hardware will be generated to preserve the signal values. The logic generated will have a parallel-multiplexed structure and rather than a priority based structure.

For example:

Case (…) //full_case parallel_case
…
endcase

is equivalent to

unique Case (…)
…
endcase

Q. Is there a Tcl script command for exiting out of the software?

A. Yes. From the GUI, you can run TCL scripts by selecting menu “Run->Run TCL script”. The TCL command to exit the software after running a TCL script is "program_terminate".

The following is a simple TCL script to run a project and close the tool after the Run is completed.

#########
project -load {D:\delete\9bit\9bit.prj}
project -run
puts "Run Completed. Closing Synplify window using command =>program_terminate"
message_popup -off
program_terminate
#################

In the above script the command "message_popup -off” will turn off (suppress) message popup dialogs. These messages are automatically printed to the stdout.log.
If the command "message_popup -off” is not written, any popup windows that appear while closing the tool will need a user response so the tool will not close automatically.