Intel® FPGA Software Installation and Licensing

ID 683472
Date 7/08/2024
Public

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5.3. Acquiring Free, No-Cost Licenses

Earlier, you had to log into the Intel® FPGA Self-Service Licensing Center (SSLC), submit an online request, download the free license, and attach it to Quartus® Prime Pro Edition software manually. With this no-cost licensing flow, you can now acquire no-cost licenses directly through the Quartus® Prime Pro Edition software GUI without going through the Intel® SSLC.

The no-cost licensing flow supports the following use cases:

  • Access eligible no-cost products only through fresh Quartus® Prime Pro Edition software installations.
  • Access eligible no-cost products as additional devices or IPs with other licenses installed.

You can obtain the free, no-cost license in the following ways:

Method 1: At the Quartus® Prime Pro Edition Software Launch

Launching the Quartus® Prime Pro Edition software without a license prompts you with the License Setup Required dialog.

Figure 6. License Setup Required Dialog

To obtain licenses for Agilex™ 5 E-Series FPGA and Questa*-Intel® FPGA Starter Edition from this dialog and set up the license, perform these steps:

  1. Select the desired licenses.
  2. Click Acquire.
  3. After acquiring the Questa*-Intel® FPGA Starter Edition, set the LM_LICENSE_FILE environment variable.
    • On Linux: Set LM_LICENSE_FILE to <home directory>/.altera.quartus/quartus2_lic.dat.
    • On Windows: Set LM_LICENSE_FILE to <home directory>/quartus2_lic.dat.

Upon successful acquisition, the Quartus® Prime Pro Edition software launches in the licensed mode.

Method 2: License Setup Screen in the Quartus® Prime Pro Edition Software GUI

From within the Quartus® Prime Pro Edition software GUI, navigate to Tools > License Setup.

Figure 7. License Setup Options Dialog

To obtain licenses for Agilex™ 5 E-Series FPGA and Questa*-Intel® FPGA Starter Edition from this dialog:

  1. Click the Get no-cost licenses button. The No-cost License Acquisitions dialog appears.
    Figure 8. No-cost License Acquisitions Dialog
  2. Select the desired licenses.
  3. Click OK to proceed with the license acquisition. During acquisition, a progress bar displays at the bottom of the screen.
  4. After acquiring the Questa*-Intel® FPGA Starter Edition, set the LM_LICENSE_FILE environment variable.
    • On Linux: Set LM_LICENSE_FILE to <home directory>/.altera.quartus/quartus2_lic.dat.
    • On Windows: Set LM_LICENSE_FILE to <home directory>/quartus2_lic.dat.
Note:
  • If the license acquisition fails, you might see either the timeout or the token expiry error messages. Acknowledging the error launches the Quartus® Prime Pro Edition software without the no-cost license.

    Figure 9. Timeout Error

    Depending on your network configurations, you may need to set up the proxy server's address and port number via the Tools > Options > Internet Connectivity page. You must use only HTTP protocol, using which the Quartus® Prime Pro Edition software connects to the proxy server to reach the license server endpoint using HTTPS protocol.

    Figure 10. Token Expired error

    When the Quartus® Prime Pro Edition software connects to the license server to acquire the no-cost license, it checks with the server if the token used to connect with the license server is still valid. If the token has expired, Quartus® Prime Pro Edition software cannot connect to license server to acquire any licenses. You can then acquire the licenses manually via the Intel FPGA Self-Service Licensing Center (SSLC) or install the latest Quartus software. For additional information about this token, refer to Refreshing License Server Token Automatically.