[comp.lsi] pld design environments

scott@labtam.oz (Scott Colwell) (08/13/90)

The reason we use palasm rather than a commercial package is that we
use sccs (source code control system) and make(1) to control the changes
and configuration of our pld hardware. At the time we made this decision,
the commercial packages didn't run on the machines we were using (we
make unix machines previously NS32000 and now Intel processors), so
we took the source to palasm and hacked it somewhat and embedded it in
a unix tool environment with things like the c preprocessor and some
filters to translate state machine descriptions to equations and to
simplify equations.

This environment allows us to program pals with a high level of abstraction
but has a number of problems. These being maintaining the software
and supporting new devices. On the flip side of course we can control
things like ensuring that the sccs revision identifier string gets into the
jedec file to ensure traceability (and into the signature bytes of the
device would be nice too :-) or other non-obvious enhancements.

Sorry for the tedious leadup but I would like some information from the
users of commercial packages on their fitness (the packages, not the users:-)
for being used in an environment with sccs and make as a replacement for us.

1. Do any packages allow batch operation ? (this would allow make
	files to control compiling a design.)

2. Do any packages give the user the ability to define 'don't cares' in
	equations ? (e.g. perhaps I know that a particular set of input
	values connot occur when a state machine is is in a particular state.
	This gives the equation simplifier more scope to minimise the
	equations.)

3. Do any of the packages perform multiple equation simplification rather
	than single equation at a time ? (This is useful when working with
	fpga and fpla devices because sub-expressions such as products in
	fplas can be common to multiple outputs and much scope for reducing
	the amount of intermediate logic is lost if not done. These common
	sub-expressions are *very* common in state machines.)

4. Do any packages handle the partitioning into multiple devices at all
	well ?

5. What packages run on unix ? (Making someone write minimisation software for
	DOS with only 640K of memory must be a cruel and unusual punishment.
	It really needs to have access to multiple megs via virtual memory.)

As somebody said, give us a simple batch interface, I already know how to
run a text editor.

-- 
Scott Colwell
Labtam Information Systems P/L	net:	scott@labtam.oz.au
Melbourne, Australia 		phone:	+61-3-587-1444