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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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15 years ago

Is SOPC builder going away?

There is talk about a new system integration toll, the Qsys. Here is the quote from an altera press release (other exiting thing coming up too )

"later this quarter, altera will deliver the qsys system integration tool, as part of the quartus ii development software."

So is Qsys replacing SOPC builder or are they going to let us pick?

read the whole thing here "http://www.altera.com/corporate/news_room/releases/2010/products/nr-edward.html?f=hp&k=wn1"

11 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    SOPC Builder will probably go away eventually since they mentioned backwards compatibility and similar user interface in the press release

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    Qsys was mentioned in an Altera training session I attended recently. I did basically ask the question, "Is SOPC builder going away?" The presenter indicated that yes, it will most likely be going away although they will probably both coexist for quite a while.

    I was expecting something more different from SOPC than the press release (http://www.altera.com/corporate/news_room/releases/2010/products/nr-edward.html?f=hp&k=wn1) seems to imply. It sounds like they are adding a lot of new features without changing too much what is already there.

    If it's backwards compatible and has a similar interface, I wonder why they are changing the name? Why not just call it SOPC II or, SOPC+ or something similar?

    I look forward to finding out what is really meant by, "Qsys will be able to offer memory-mapped and datapath interconnects that achieve nearly double the performance of Altera's SOPC Builder tool".

    I hope it doesn't translate into "uses more logic to gain performance whether you need it or not".
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    Hi Kevin, Ppitou --

    I'm a software developer for SOPC Builder/Qsys.

    The is for Qsys and SOPC Builder to coexist for a time.

    Qsys has a completely rearchitected switching fabric generator. The SOPC Builder switching fabric generator is a monolithic Perl script, and has changed very little in the last couple of releases. The Qsys switching fabric generator is much more modular and algorithmic.

    The switching fabric produced by the first version of Qsys will have slightly different tradeoffs than SOPC Builder's. Most designs will be a little faster and a little, not much, larger. Some designs can be dramatically faster.

    It provides the foundation for future work where we can expose more and more control over the fabric, to let you make tradeoffs as you see fit. Like, pipeline certain connections and not others, or, write your own address decoder to replace ours. That kind of thing.

    But first we had to attend to the basics, like, how SOPC Builder doesn't let you choose the "border signals" of your design. And SOPC Builder doesn't let you use a .sopc file inside another .sopc file. (Qsys can instantiate a .qsys within a .qsys, very handy!)

    Under the hood, Qsys and SOPC builder share code where appropriate.

    I hope that this gives you a flavor of what we're up to lately!
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    I got to thinking... often times Altera includes preview or beta releases of new tools with Quartus releases. I just searched my install folder and there is indeed a preview of Qsys in the 10.0sp1 release!

    ./10.0sp1/quartus/sopc_builder/bin/qsys-edit-preview.exe

    From a Nios II Command Shell you can just type "qsys-edit-preview" to load it.

    I wonder if this preview is a good representation of how it will really look. I was a little surprised to see how similar the preview looks to the existing SOPC builder.

    dvb,

    You mentioned future versions will give more control of the switching fabric. Does this includes more flexible arbitration methods? The simple arbitration share settings that exist now are not very flexible. I have seen and just started to look at the MPFE (multi port front end) that is part of some of the Altera video reference designs, but I think it would be great to have this functionality directly part of SOPC or Qsys.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    --- Quote Start ---

    ...there is indeed a preview of Qsys in the 10.0sp1 release! ... From a Nios II Command Shell you can just type "qsys-edit-preview" to load it.

    I wonder if this preview is a good representation of how it will really look. I was a little surprised to see how similar the preview looks to the existing SOPC builder.

    ...control of the switching fabric. Does this includes more flexible arbitration methods?

    --- Quote End ---

    Hi Kevin -- The 10.0sp1 preview qsys is pretty rough, but indicative. The main difference is the fabric that gets built. When you start using the tool, though, the subtle differences will become apparent and make more sense. :)

    As to arbitration methods and such -- caveat, I'm primarily on the authoring-tool side, and not directly involved in coding up round-robin fairness algorithms -- but yes. That's exactly the sort of thing we aim to, over time, provide.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    I wonder whether in Qsys it will be possible to interconnect 'custom interfaces', e.g. I have developed a proprietary flow protocol (which could be seen as sort of subset of the ST-protocol). Can I define components and have Qsys interconnect them for me?

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    In the Qsys preview, "Conduit" interfaces show up in the GUI and you can connect them in the connection area similar to how Avalon interfaces are connected in SOPC builder.

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    --- Quote Start ---

    In the Qsys preview, "Conduit" interfaces show up in the GUI and you can connect them in the connection area similar to how Avalon interfaces are connected in SOPC builder.

    --- Quote End ---

    I tried that, it is not straightforward to build a component using conduits, as the tool mixes it all up, and generates a lot of errors when trying to generate a small design. Maybe the official release will do better, and have the appropriate help-file.

    If you connect 2 conduit interfaces together in the main QSys window, how does it know which signals to connect to each other? In the component editor you can only 'export' the signals and not assign any functionality to them other than in- or out-put. Maybe I have to try and 'fake' an ST-interface, as QSys handles that perfectly, of course.

    I have an additional question/observation. I imagine once you have 20 or more components and more than 2 paths in the design, that the connection diagram in the SOPC/QSys window gets difficult to read. I know that some people do not think high of schematics, but it would be a better candidate to represent complex designs.

    28nov10: I took the one-hour on-line "Using SOPC Builder" training and that cleared out a lot of things.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    I typically use a pair of ST interfaces to move "conduit like" data around. When the data requires flow control then I *highly* recommend using ST interfaces since conduits are literally a "free-for-all clump of wires and buses" with no concept of flow control unless you implement it yourself. The bare minimum for an ST interface is the 'data' signal so if you want to move signals from point A to B you can just bury them in the data signal.

    As for all this Qsys talk... I would wait until there is a formal release so that you will have documentation to follow along with.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    Plenty of documentation about qsys now available :D :D let's the fun begin :eek: :eek: