Re: OT: EDA tools on AMD-64?

Joe wrote:

> Any news about support of EDA tools running on AMD-64 platform?
> (Especially backend stuffs which likely to take up more memory).
> I only heard that Cadence and VCS (Synopsys) will support it.
> Any more? Is it available now or should I wait? Any performance
> figures?
>

Icarus Verilog supports AMD-64.

Also, you can generally run ix86 Linux binaries on Linux/x86-64
without a hitch (and without a performance penalty.)

My 1.8GHz Opteron is nearly twice as fast (Icarus Verilog) as
the 1.8GHz Athon, for the same price. I have seen huge simulations
that take more then 4Gig run to completion. Very nice.

--
Steve Williams "The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
steve at icarus.com But I have promises to keep,
http://www.icarus.com and lines to code before I sleep,
http://www.picturel.com And lines to code before I sleep."

Stephen Williams

In article <bgcifd$op$>,
Stephen Williams <> wrote:
>My 1.8GHz Opteron is nearly twice as fast (Icarus Verilog) as
>the 1.8GHz Athon, for the same price. I have seen huge simulations
>that take more then 4Gig run to completion. Very nice.

Is this due to Icarus exploting the 64-bit architecture (really, just
the increased registers - nothing else will cut the runtime) or does
the Opteron run all 32-bit code twice as fast as well?

I'd like to get my hands on an Opteron but they ain't selling 'em in
the local stores just yet.

David Jones

David Jones wrote:
> In article <bgcifd$op$>,
> Stephen Williams <> wrote:
>
>>My 1.8GHz Opteron is nearly twice as fast (Icarus Verilog) as
>>the 1.8GHz Athon, for the same price. I have seen huge simulations
>>that take more then 4Gig run to completion. Very nice.
>
>
> Is this due to Icarus exploting the 64-bit architecture (really, just
> the increased registers - nothing else will cut the runtime) or does
> the Opteron run all 32-bit code twice as fast as well?

There is some, but not much in Icarus Verilog that takes advantage
of 64bit words, so I have no reason to doubt that I would get the
same if I ran as a 32bit program. Can't say I bothered with the
experiment.

Of course, the 64bit really pays when your designs are so big
the simulations take lots of address space.

> I'd like to get my hands on an Opteron but they ain't selling 'em in
> the local stores just yet.

Got mine here: www.polywell.com
It's not obvious from their web page, but you can get them in
workstation clothing. Mine cost on the order of $5,000 w/o monitor.

--
Steve Williams "The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
steve at icarus.com But I have promises to keep,
http://www.icarus.com and lines to code before I sleep,
http://www.picturel.com And lines to code before I sleep."

Stephen Williams