Impulse is a proprietary design suite developed by NanoXplore to support its entire Radiation Hardened FPGA portfolio.

Impulse offers a complete compile design flow which transforms user HDL RTL code into a bitstream for dedicated NX devices through Synthesise, Place and Route software steps. It includes its own synthesis and static timing analysis tool.

Open

Impulse design flow

This page provides a list of documents to help you install and use NanoXplore software products.

Documentation

Before you launch the Impulse software environment, please read the Tools Installation Guide carefully to make sure your system meets all system requirements and supported operating system.

Also make sure that the mandatory License Manager Daemon is properly setup and running to enable access to Impulse software features and required tools for Impulse software installation.

Once Impulse is installed and you have obtained a working license from NanoXplore Support, review the Impulse design flow documentation:

• Impulse design flow
  Getting started with Impulse and creating and compiling a project through the graphical flow

• NXpython specifications
  Becoming familiar with the complete set of NXpython methods to create and edit a project through the dedicated scripting environment based on Python

Along with Impulse and NXpython documentation come the Library guides which provide detailed descriptions of the software primitives developed by NanoXplore for HDL instantiation & inference and behavioural & backannotated simulations:

• Library Guide for NG-MEDIUM & NG-LARGE

• Library Guide for NG-ULTRA

NxCore

NanoXplore’s NXcore is an IP generator defined within Impulse to configure and generate IP's provided by NanoXplore or third-part IP providers.

NXscope works within these features as an IP aimed for HDL integration in the design, which allows signal capture and the onboard dumping process of a programmed bitstream. This IP comes with the following documentation:

• Startup User Guide: Getting started with NXscope

• NxScope User Manual: Detailed documentation for the NXscope tool

STA

Impulse software tool chain supports Static Timing Analysis constraints following two methods:

• NX Design Constraint (NXDC): Users can declare STA constraints with corresponding methods in an NXpython script based on existing timing commands

• Synopsys Design Constraint (SDC): Impulse enables you to declare timing constraints in a standard SDC file for various types of constraints
  Note: List of available constraints in progress

Training Package

For those of you starting out with Impulse or NXpython, NanoXplore has created a Training Package chain which provides 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:

• Application Note
  The Application Note describes the test infrastructure and its different categories

• Impulse Traning Package User Manual
  The User Manual guides the user through the Training Package environment

• TP Testcase ReadMe
  This ReadMe document describes the argparser feature used to launch an NX test case

Download

Download the latest or previous versions of Impulse software by following the link below:

nxdesignsuite-23.3.0.2