NanoXplore has developed its proprietary design suite Impulse which supports the complete Radiation Hardened FPGA portfolio. Impulse is a tool providing a complete compile design flow, which transforms the user HDL RTL code into a bitstream for a specific NX device through synthesize, place and route software steps. It includes its own synthesis and static timing analysis tool.
This page provides a listing of all available documents to install and used all software features provided by NanoXplore.
Documentation
When starting with Impulse software environment, the first thing is to install system requirements, supported operating system, mandatory License Manager Daemon to enable access to Impulse software features and required features for Impulse software installment:
Once the tool is installed and you obtained a working license from the NanoXplore support, the Impulse design flow documentation is divided into three categories:
starting with Impulse interface to create and compile a project through the graphical flow : Impulse design flow
become familiar with the complete set of NXpython methods to create and edit a project through the dedicated scripting environment based on Python: NXpython specification
Along with Impulse and NXpython documentations comes the Library guide pages providing detailed description of the software primitives developped by NanoXplore for HDL instantiation & inference, behavioral and backannoted simulations:
Library Guide for NG-MEDIUM & NG-LARGE
NxCore
NXcore is an IP generator defined within Impulse to configure and generate IPs provided by NanoXplore or third part IP providers. Within these features, NanoXplore developed the NXscope, an IP aimed for HDL integration in the design which allows to perform signal capture and dumping process on board of a programmed bitstream. This IP comes with the following documentation:
how to start with the NXscope: Startup User Guide
detailed documentation of the NXscope: User Manual
STA
Impulse software tool chain supports Static Timing Analysis constraints following two methods:
User has the possibility to declare STA constraints with corresponding methods in a NXpython script based on existing timing commands: NX Design Constraint (NXDC)
Impulse allows to declare timing constraints into a standard SDC file for various types of constraints (the list of available constraints will be progressively completed): Synopsys Design Constraint (SDC)
Training Package
For people starting with Impulse/NXpython environment, NanoXplore has developed a whole Training Package chain providing an environment with a full hierarchical set of test cases following a specific test plan to discover and test NXpython methods, NX primitives, etc… The documentation is divided into three pages:
the application note which describes the test infrastructure and its different categories: Application Note
the User manual aimed to guide user through the Training Package environment: User Manual
the ReadMe describres the argparser feature used to launch NX test case: ReadMe
Download
The latest and previous versions of Impulse software are available for download with the following links: