In this section we will attempt to explain why we chose to use the Xilinx ISE software here at the university and what benefits we derive from them. To do so, it is necessary to first have a much clearer understanding of the different options. It should be pointed out at this point that the opinions expressed here are those of the author (Craig Kief) and are in no way those of the University of New Mexico. There are basically two tracts or paths you must choose from once you decide to use the Xilinx development software and hardware in an educational environment. A lot of what drove our decision process was the textbook that we used. Our Mano Kine text came (originally, around year 200) with an edition of Foundation 2.1 for the student (last versions of the book now have ISE 4.2). Our belief was that we should mirror our lab to what the students had available. Here are a couple of pictures to better describe the two tracts.
Shown above is the Foundation Tract. It is the way we chose to proceed when we first started. We started in our labs with the same software that was in the students text (Foundation 2.1i). Over the years we upgraded to 3.1 and then to 3.3i and were very happy with all of them except for the constant hassles with working through the Flexlm licensing issues associated with FPGA Express.
Shown above is the ISE Tract. It is where we transitioned to over the summer of 2002. We felt the switch to ISE was the correct thing to do. This is due in part to the fact that Xilinx is going to begin focusing more and more on ISE and less on Foundation. We have been told that older Foundation will eventually be eliminated. We started with ISE 4.1i and as of the date of this document have upgraded to ISE 6.2i (service pack 2). We intend to switch to ISE 6.3 before the summer 2005. Here is a website that shows some of the specific differences and similarities.
http://www.support.xilinx.com/ise/products/SOFTmatrices2-12-2.pdf
The Xilinx University Program (XUP) provided us with the software at virtually no cost. The software was free and we pay a $250 yearly maintenance fee. This fee covers are ability to obtain licenses and receive technical support if needed. Processing donation requests and dealing with the XUP is an extremely easy process.
The XUP also provided us with an extensive quantity of high quality Xilinx devices and prototyping platforms for our labs.
NOTICE: If you are using Windows 2000 as your operating system, click here before you install ISE 4.2i which is kind of a very old version of Xilinx software but sometimes it is available with the text book of the ECE238 class.
