The OpenBus Document

At the heart of the OpenBus System is the OpenBus System document. This document is created and managed using Altium Designer's OpenBus Editor (Figure 1).

Figure 1. The OpenBus Editor.

The OpenBus Editor becomes active when the active document in the main design window is a .OpenBus file. Create a new file of this type by right-clicking on the FPGA project entry in the *Projects panel and choosing the Add New to Project » OpenBus System Document command.

The OpenBus Editor has the familiar look and feel of Altium Designer's Schematic Editor, with a streamlined set of resources applicable to the creation of an OpenBus System. Filtering and inspection are provided courtesy of OpenBus Filter, OpenBus Inspector and OpenBus List panels, accessed from the OpenBus panel access button, to the bottom-right of the main design window.

The level of abstraction in place ensures that your processor-based design is created in a far more visual and intuitive way – think flow diagram on steroids and you would be pretty near the mark!