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Getting Started with Synopsys Synthesis & Simulation Tools

last updated 8/17/00

Setup

Synthesis tools can be used by adding the directory /tools/synopsys/1999.10-04/sparcOS5/syn/bin to your search path and setting the SYNOPSYS environment variable to /tools/synopsys/1999.10-04.  Simulation tools can be used by sourcing the setup script /tools/synopsys/1999.10-4/admin/setup/environ.csh.

Available Tools

Currently the synthesis tools (Design Compiler, Behavioral Compiler, Design Analyzer) and the simulation tools (VHDL System Simulator, VHDL Debugger) are available.  There are a number of other tools available which are not supported with this setup.  You can read about these tools in Kevin Zimmerman's Synopsys tools README.  Note that the Module Compiler is currently not installed.  Contact Kevin if you want to use Module Compiler.

Using the Online Documentation

Synopsys has revampped their online documentation to use PDF files instead of the Interleaf Viewer (iview).  The best way to access the online documentation is with the following steps:

  1. Load the top-level PDF file from a PC with the following link:
  2. To perform a search, choose Tools -> Search -> Query (or use Ctrl-Shift-F) in the Acrobat Exchange window (NOT in the Web Browser's window).
  3. You will need to configure the Acrobat search engine.  In the Adobe Acrobat Search pop-up, click on Indexes...
  4. In the Index Selection pop-up, click Add...
  5. Indexes use the .pdx extension.  There are lots of different indexes, but the two which you will most likely want to use can be found in the following places:
    • Synthesis Index (\\HITZ\unix_tools\commercial\synopsys\1999.10-4\doc\online\synth\index.pdx)
    • Simulation Index (\\HITZ\unix_tools\commercial\synopsys\1999.10-4\doc\online\sim\index.pdx)
  6. Once the indicies are added, the seach procedure should be pretty straight-forward.

Libraries

The most up-to-date synthesis libraries we have can be found in /tools/unicad/CORELIB_HCMOS7_TEC_2.1.a/SYNOPSYS_DC/.  Here you will find libraries targetted for 2.5V (nominal) and 2.0V (worst-case) operation. 

The most up-to-date gate-level simulation libraries can be found in /tools/unicad/CORELIB_HCMOS7_HDL_2.1/SYNOPSYS_VSS/.  These libraries may have to be re-compiled to work with our version of vhdlsim.  An example of this can be found in /tools/unicad/local/vhdl_models.

Tips on Usage

We haven't had time to put together any tutorials yet, so for now, refer to the old Synopsys Support Page on the Zabriskie cluster.

Rhett Davis
wrdavis@eecs.berkeley.edu