Integrated Aldec OEM Simulator

Altium has partnered with Aldec to take Altium Designer's HDL simulation capabilities to a whole new level. Aldec's Advanced VHDL and Verilog Simulation Engine is seamlessly incorporated into Altium Designer as an OEM technology. Where once you were limited to VHDL-based simulation only, you now have the option to use either VHDL or Verilog.

Using the Aldec OEM Simulator

The Aldec OEM Simulator has replaced the VHDL-only DXP Simulator found in earlier releases of Altium Designer. From the Simulation tab of the Project Options dialog for an FPGA or Core project, you will notice that the Aldec OEM Simulator is the simulator of choice by default.

Running a Simulation

Kicking off a simulation with the Aldec OEM Simulator is simplicity itself. With the schematic, HDL source document or testbench document open as the active document, simply select the Simulate with Aldec OEM Simulator command from the main Simulator menu. Alternatively, access the launch command for the simulator from the project's right-click menu in the Projects panel.

The simulation will commence, and the Aldec logo will appear to confirm simulation is being performed with the Aldec OEM Simulator. All simulation results are displayed, as they were previously, in Altium Designers Wave Editor.

Need Greater Simulation Capabilities?

The Aldec OEM Simulator raises the bar for simulating your designs – and all from within the unified environment that IS Altium Designer. However, you should be aware that the integrated Aldec OEM Simulator can not be used to simulate very large designs. And, although a powerful simulation engine in its own right, offers slower simulation speeds when compared with the standalone simulation engine offered by Aldec.

To get the ultimate in simulation from Aldec – the 'full-blown' version of its simulation engine as it were – look no further than Aldec's Active-HDL™ Windows-based integrated FPGA Design and Simulation solution. This solution incorporates powerful standalone simulation technology that can be accessed from within Altium Designer.

Where the Aldec OEM Simulator integrated with Altium Designer is optimized for analysis and debugging, the standalone Active-HDL is optimized more for verification. Both, however, share the same underlying simulation engine. This allows you to freely move between the two, safe in the knowledge that there are no subtle syntactic differences or handling nuances between the two. Switching to use Active-HDL as your simulator simply lets you enjoy increased scale of designs that can be simulated, and at greater speed.

Once you have purchased your licensed copy of Active-HDL and installed on your machine, access from Altium Designer is simply a matter of switching from the Aldec OEM Simulator to Active-HDL, on the Simulation tab of the Project Options dialog.

Further information on Aldec's Active-HDL solution, as well as brochure and movies, can be found on the main Active-HDL product page.