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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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11 years ago

Enable signaltap in quartus_sh build?

I do my builds using tcl scripts. I usually do the full build by running 

quartus_sh -t build.tcl
Where build.tcl will create the project, do assignments and then run compile

However when I include signaltap files in this flow I have to do: 

quartus_sh -t setup.tcl
quartus_stp project_name --stp_file file.stp --enable
quartus_sh -t comp.tcl
Where setup.tcl will create the project and do assignements, and comp.tcl will simply run "execute_flow -compile". However, it's a bit cumbersome to run three processes.

Is there a way to run the equivalent of quartus_stp from within quartus_sh?

Most of the stuff that I've found in the stp package is related to running signaltap. Also enabling signaltap and stp files using assignment is not sufficient as the quartus_stp program appears to convert the xml forms in the stp file to various sld_node assignments etc.

3 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    11 years ago

    I've never really understood the SignalTap interface via Tcl, but it's definitely non-standard. Here's something I put together for somebody else that worked. Change project_name to your project name:

    project_open project_name

    post_message "Setting SignalTap II Logic Analyzer settings."

    post_message "Assignments --> Settings --> SignaTap II Logic Analyzer"

    # Note that these assignments are unnecessary, as the quartus_stp call really adds the .stp, but this makes the .qsf match what was run

    set_global_assignment -name SIGNALTAP_FILE mystp.stp

    set_global_assignment -name ENABLE_SIGNALTAP ON

    set_global_assignment -name USE_SIGNALTAP_FILE mystp.stp

    set_global_assignment -name PARTITION_NETLIST_TYPE STRICT_POST_FIT -section_id Top

    set_global_assignment -name PARTITION_FITTER_PRESERVATION_LEVEL PLACEMENT_AND_ROUTING -section_id Top

    export_assignments; post_message -type info "Exporting Assignments..."

    qexec "quartus_stp --stp_file mystp.stp --enable project_name"

    qexec "quartus_map --read_settings_files=on --write_settings_files=off project_name -c rev_name"

    qexec "quartus_cdb project_name --merge"

    qexec "quartus_fit --read_settings_files=off --write_settings_files=off project_name -c rev_name"

    qexec "quartus_asm --read_settings_files=off --write_settings_files=off project_name -c rev_name"

    project_close
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    11 years ago

    Thanks, but that's basically what I do except you fork out the processes from quartus rather than the parent shell. I was looking for a package which was doing the equivalent of the quartus_stp process. Forking out processes which will modify the currently open project database could possibly lead to potential problems.

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    11 years ago

    I'd move project_close before running quartus_stp for safety as that process modifies the .qsf file on disk. In addition, I'd remove the following two redundant assignments that will be updated by quartus_stp --stp_file mystp.stp --enable project_name:

    set_global_assignment -name ENABLE_SIGNALTAP ON

    set_global_assignment -name USE_SIGNALTAP_FILE mystp.stp

    Alternatively, I'd change the command arguments to simply be "quartus_stp project_name" if you'd like to set those two up explicitly. Having two just makes the script harder to maintain.

    Here is what I'd do in one .tcl script evaluated by quartus_sh:

    project_open project_name

    source setup.tcl

    project_close

    qexec "quartus_stp --stp_file mystp.stp --enable project_name"

    project_open project_name

    source comp.tcl

    project_close