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As a part of my curriculum, I am required to implement a project on FPGA. However, even the cheapest available boards are out of my reach (blame currency conversion !) and besides, even if I buy one, it would be lying useless thereafter.

So I wish to know whether I can simulate a real FPGA to get an 'all virtual solution' ? If yes, do mention some softwares for the same.

In other words, I should be able to write verilog or systemVerilog code in some software, verify and test the code, and finally upload the code. Then I should be able to do all the stuff which I would normally do on a real FPGA like interfacing displays, keyboards etc. and verify that my design does work on real boards. Just this time, it would be within a simulation environment, much like we have simulators like MultiSim and Tina, where we can simulate hardware.

If we cannot, is there some other way by which I could possibly build FPGA design without having a real FPGA ?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Lattice do FPGA dev boards starting at under $30. You can implement VGA output with simple R-2R DAC on a piece of prototype board. If you need something more sophisticated, try asking for a loan of a dev board from your local Altera or Xilinx distributor. \$\endgroup\$
    – scary_jeff
    May 22, 2015 at 14:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ @scary_jeff. Thats what I dont want to do (buy a board). And thats precisely why I mentioned 'currency conversion' ; otherwise people would start advising me to "Get a real board" :/ \$\endgroup\$
    – Plutonium smuggler
    May 22, 2015 at 14:21
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    \$\begingroup\$ Just trying to help, since from the answers, what you want does not exist. You could always sell the board afterwards on ebay, and is a board that's cheaper than a text book really out of reach for an EE student? There's also the loan avenue; I've had expensive boards on loan before. \$\endgroup\$
    – scary_jeff
    May 22, 2015 at 14:33
  • \$\begingroup\$ @scary_jeff: I guess you ain't seen the Eastern-economy textbook prices. Makes every US student jawdrop. \$\endgroup\$
    – Fizz
    Oct 14, 2015 at 0:38

2 Answers 2

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If you need real interaction at real speed, then no there is no alternative. You can get quite creative with the testbenches, but if you need to send to a display then you're not going to be able to do that in software.

In some ways, FPGA is the simulator you're asking for; it's a simulation of an ASIC.

(If it's part of the curriculum it really ought to be provided by the course! Usually as a loan.)

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Actually Altera has something called 'virtual fpga' but I couldnt find much info about it. I thought maybe there's something like that that would fulfil my needs. See -> newsroom.altera.com/press-releases/nr-soc-vp.htm . The language here is too technical for a noob like me. So maybe theres already something like this which I dont know of ? (I came to know of it from an electronics magazine, but besides this there was no more info provided) \$\endgroup\$
    – Plutonium smuggler
    May 22, 2015 at 13:32
  • \$\begingroup\$ That seems to be describing a simulation of the ARM core, with the capacity to connect to a simulation of the rest of the FPGA. \$\endgroup\$
    – pjc50
    May 22, 2015 at 13:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ So does that mean simulation is possible ? To again quote the article from that magazine--"Announced in February 2015, Altera and Mentor Graphics have teamed up together to provide vir- tual platforms that contain simula- tion models of ARM processor sub- systems featured in Altera’s SoC field programmable gate array (FPGA) families. This simplifies embedded software development and reduces the need for expensive hardware by enabling large development teams to perform application development and software regression testing in a vir- tual environment based on the chip. Is there... \$\endgroup\$
    – Plutonium smuggler
    May 22, 2015 at 13:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ ...something you know of like this ? \$\endgroup\$
    – Plutonium smuggler
    May 22, 2015 at 13:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ That's the kind of simulation you ruled out in the other answer. The Altera tools will let you simulate in software, but when doing so you cannot interact with real hardware. \$\endgroup\$
    – pjc50
    May 22, 2015 at 14:33
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I believe what you are talking about is having a Test Bench, a virtual environment used to verify a design. It can be done with any simulation software, like Multisim.

You can either code a virtual approximation of what your inputs and outputs are in Multisim/etc. and have your FPGA simulation interact with it, if you're lucky this may already exist and you just have to find it.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ nope. I know about test benches. By test benches, I would only be able to verify logic functioning, whereas I wish to verify the real functioning ie how will my design behave if it interacts with a real display, real keyboard etc. (And I'm sure you mean Modelsim, not multisim ; both are different) \$\endgroup\$
    – Plutonium smuggler
    May 22, 2015 at 13:22
  • \$\begingroup\$ Real functioning, as in emulating the real world? So you want a software that can do circuit analysis on top of a behavioral simulation based on systemVerilog code? So that you can, say, monitor the drive strength of the I/O pins on the FPGA? And you may need other emulators for a display and keyboard? \$\endgroup\$
    – The Ana
    May 22, 2015 at 13:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ sort of. Although my aim is to just verify functioning not go into that level of detail as to what the drive strength is..etc \$\endgroup\$
    – Plutonium smuggler
    May 22, 2015 at 13:58

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