On 11/28/07, Viktor Pracht <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > What can the really expensive tools do that Icarus can't? >
The really expensive tools are smart. Icarus, Synplicity, ISE's synthesizer, and other basic ones like that aren't; they just make the most direct translation from Verilog to technology cells. Then it's up to P&R to make it fit. The smart tools look ahead, consider timing earlier in the process, and they'll refactor your logic to meet constraints. You know how, hypothetically, any chunk of combinatorial logic can be converted into two levels of AND and OR gates (with some inverters). So if your logic doesn't meet timing, a smart tool can see that your logic has too many layers and reorganize it so that it has fewer (up to practical limits). These toy FPGA tools don't do any of that, or if they do anything like that at all, they do a lousy job of it. -- Timothy Normand Miller http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~millerti Open Graphics Project _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
