Nexys4 , ISE and programming

[Philippe]

Hi folks,

 

I'm little bit confusing with the different tools around the Nexys4.

How can I program either the FPGA (Artix-7) or the Flash device.

Directly from the ISE (Free Webpack) ?  Or using  a special diligent tool (Impact? Adept ? ) 

These tools are separate tools ? or included as plugin in ISE 

 

Thanks for your answers

Philippe

[Alex]

Hi Philippe, here are your options

1) through ISE Webpack and then Impact - you can generate bit file and then open the impact through ISE Webpack

2) through Vivado Webpack

I will suggest Vivado Webpack as you can do everything in one platform

[Philippe]

Thanks Alex for your answer.

Ok as far as I understand , the two design suites are valuables. Developers are more confortable with Vivado and it is more powerful  but on the other-side ISE is free.

I'm just going to start with a FPGA platform, and I appreciate that Xilinx has a free Design tools. I don't know the price for a Vivado  seat.

 

Philippe. 

[sLowe]

Hey Philippe,

 

The Vivado Webpack license is free. So you can choose whichever one you want! I would also recommend using Vivado.

 

-Sam

[dms]

Hello -

I just tried to program my new Nexys4 DDR using Impact and impact responds: WARNING:iMPACT:923 - Can not find cable, check cable setup !

 

I checked the usb driver and Windows 7 indicates that is is operating correctly and identifies it as: Digilent USB Device

 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

dms

[Alex]

Hi Philippe, you can refer to the solutions provided by Xilinx: http://www.xilinx.com/support/answers/30184.html

[dms]

Hello

I tried the various suggestions and could not get them to work.  I finally found the suggestion that I should manually add

the following to the system path of my Windows 7 systems:

 

C:Xilinx14.7ISE_DSISEbinnt64

 

How to get there:

 

Control Panel -> System -> Advanced System Settings -> Advanced -> Environmental Variable -> System Variables

Edit Path

 

This worked and Impact now let me program the Nexys4 DDR with one of the demo bit files.  I found the suggestion buried in a another forum but failed to record the URL.

dms