Simulation Executable Command Overview

ISE Simulator (ISim)

Note The following information is intended for advanced users.

You can run the Xilinx® ISim at the command line instead of using ISE® or the ISim interface.

Running Simulation From the Command Line

To simulate a Verilog design from the command line, see:

To simulate a VHDL design from the command line, see:

Executable Command Summary

There are a number of commands used to execute a simulation at the command line.

Compilation Commands

VHDL compiler (vhpcomp) - Vhpcomp parses VHDL source files for all design units in those files.
Verilog compiler (vlogcomp) - Vlogcomp parses Verilog source files for all design units in those files.

Elaboration Commands

HDL linker (fuse) - Fuse performs static elaboration of a design in terms of parsed nodes, generates object code for each unique module instance, and links the generated object codes with ISim simulation engine library to create a simulation executable. A user runs this generated simulation executable to effect simulation of the design under consideration.

Simulation Commands

Simulation Executable - The ISE Simulation Executable is generated by the fuse command. To run the simulation of a design in ISim, the generated simulation executable needs to be invoked. When ISim is run inside the ISE interface, ISE takes care of invoking the generated simulation executable. A command-line user needs to explicitly invoke the generated simulation executable to effect simulation. The simulation executable effects event-driven simulation and has rich support for driving and probing simulation using Tcl.

Project Files

Vhpcomp, vlogcomp and fuse can all be invoked using a project file. You can collect all of the design files for a particular project into a project file, and use the -prj option to specify the project file. The project file can contain VHDL or Verilog files.

Each line in a project file must be formatted as follows:

where,

<language> is either vhdl or verilog.

<library> is an optional working library name.

Tcl Commands

The simulation executable provides a powerful Tcl interface that can be run in batch mode. Tcl commands can be used to control the simulator and view the results of simulation.

Invoke the simulation executable using the -tclbatch option to list a number of Tcl commands in a batch file.