Questa*-Intel® FPGA Edition Quick-Start: Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition

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ID 691278
Date 6/26/2022
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Document Table of Contents
Document Table of Contents x
1. Questa*-Intel® FPGA Edition Quick-Start Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition 2. Known Differences Between the Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition and ModelSim* - Intel® FPGA Edition 3. Questa*-Intel® FPGA Edition Simulation Quick-Start Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition Revision History
1. Questa*-Intel® FPGA Edition Quick-Start Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition x
1.1. Prerequisites 1.2. Open the Example Design 1.3. Specify EDA Tool Settings 1.4. Generate a Simulator Setup Script Template 1.5. Create the Simulation Script 1.6. Compile and Simulate the Design 1.7. View Signal Waveforms 1.8. Add Signals to the Simulation 1.9. Rerun Simulation
1. Questa*-Intel® FPGA Edition Quick-Start Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition
2. Known Differences Between the Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition and ModelSim* - Intel® FPGA Edition
3. Questa*-Intel® FPGA Edition Simulation Quick-Start Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition Revision History

1.1. Prerequisites

Both Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition and Questa* Intel® FPGA Starter Edition software require valid software licenses. However, the Questa* Intel® FPGA Starter Edition license is free.

Downloading the Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition and Questa* Intel® FPGA Starter Edition Software

To download the software with individual executable files:

  1. Visit the FPGA Software Download Center page.
  2. Using the left-hand filter pane, perform the following steps to refine the search results:
    1. Select the Intel® Quartus® Prime Design Software option. This displays three Intel® Quartus® Prime software editions (Pro, Standard or Lite).
    2. Select the Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro software edition. This displays a list of supported software versions.
    3. Select the operating system (Linux or Microsoft Windows*).
  3. In the refined list of pages, click on the desired page to download the software.
  4. Under the Downloads section, click the Individual Files tab.
  5. Download the Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition (Includes Starter Edition) software file(s) by clicking the Download button below each file name.

Refer to the downloading and installing the FPGA software chapter in the Intel® FPGA Software Installation and Licensing for additional information.

Generating the License

The Intel® Quartus® Prime software requires a paid license (fixed or floating license subscription). A paid subscription provides access to the Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition software, Intel® Quartus® Prime Standard Edition, and the Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition with one year of maintenance support. Once you have bought the subscription from one of the distributors, your order gets processed, and license entitlements are set up and managed in the Intel® FPGA Self Service Licensing Center (SSLC), where you can generate a license.dat file. This file enables you to use the software or IP product licensed, all previous versions, and all versions released within one year of the purchase date.

Questa* Intel® FPGA Starter Edition license is free and you can directly obtain it from the Intel® FPGA Self Service Licensing Center (SSLC).

If you do not have access to SSLC, you must first complete registering to SSLC and create an account by visiting Register for Intel® FPGA Self Service Licensing Center (SSLC).

Note:
  • The Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition software does not support companion licenses. You must purchase additional licenses if you want to run the software on other computers.
  • The Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition software license does not support Remote Desktop access with node-locked, uncounted licenses.

Follow these steps to generate the license:

  1. Go to the Intel® FPGA Self-Service Licensing Center (SSLC).
  2. Select the Sign up for Evaluation or Free Licenses option on the menu bar.
  3. In the list of products displayed, select the desired option:
    • For Questa* Intel® FPGA Starter Edition license, select the Questa* Intel® FPGA Starter Edition(License: SW-QUESTA) option.
    • For Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition license, select Intel® Quartus® Prime Software 90-Day Evaluation (Standard and Pro Editions) (License: EVALUATION-LIC) option.
  4. Under the # of Seats column, enter the number of seats you require.
  5. Read the license terms of use.
  6. Select the "I have read and agree to the terms of use of this license as listed below" check box.
  7. Click Get License. A dialog box displays asking you to which computer should the license be assigned. You can use one of the following options:
    • Option 1: Click Create a New Computer if you want to assign the license to a new computer. You must provide information about the required hardware and license type. For information about the license type, refer to Intel® FPGA Software License Types. For information about how to extract information about your computer hardware, refer to Hardware Information Required When You Request a License.
    • Option 2: Click Assign an Existing Computer and search for the computer name/NIC ID that you have created previously in your My Intel® account. To view your list of computers, use of the following options:
      • Visit the License Assistant and select Regenerate License by Primary Computer > View all computers and select
      • On the SSLC menu bar, click Computers and License Files and select the desired option.
  8. Click Generate. You receive an email with the license attached to your registered email address.
  9. Save the license.dat file on your computer (for example, ~/intelFPGA_pro/LR-xxxxxx_License.dat).
Note: Before using Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition and Questa* Intel® FPGA Starter Edition software, you must set an environment variable to point to the location of the license.

Setting Up the Questa* Intel® FPGA Starter Edition Software License

After you receive and save the license.dat file on your computer, follow these instructions:

Note: The Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition software license does not support Remote Desktop access with node-locked, uncounted licenses.

On Windows System

  1. Go to This PC, right-click, and select Properties.
  2. Click Advanced System Setting.
  3. In the Advanced tab, select Environment Variable.
  4. Under System variables, create a new variable with the name as LM_LICENSE_FILE and value as <license.dat file path>.
  5. Click OK and restart the Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition software.
Alternatively, open a command prompt and run the following command to set up the LM_LICENSE_FILE environment variable: 
setx LM_LICENSE_FILE <path_to_license_file>;%LM_LICENSE_FILE%

For example: setx LM_LICENSE_FILE C:\intelFPGA\license.dat;%LM_LICENSE_FILE%

You can also set up the Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition software license using the Siemens EDA license daemon mgcld, which you can find in the <Questa - Intel FPGA Edition system directory>\ directory. Before starting the Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition software, set the MGLS_LICENSE_FILE environment variable to the location and file name of the Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition license file. For example: 
MGLS_LICENSE_FILE (<Questa installation directory>/licenses/eda/license.dat)
or with the <port>@<hostname> notation, where <port> is the license port number and <hostname> is the license server’s host name. For example, 1900@my_lic_server.

On Linux System

Run one of the following commands in a command prompt window: 
export LM_LICENSE_FILE=<path to license>:$LM_LICENSE_FILE
setenv LM_LICENSE_FILE "<path_to_license_file>"
You can also set up the Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition software license using the Siemens EDA license daemon mgcld, which you can find in the <Questa - Intel FPGA Edition installation directory>/ directory. Before starting the Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition software, set the MGLS_LICENSE_FILE environment variable to the location and file name of the Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition license file. For example: 
MGLS_LICENSE_FILE (<Questa installation directory>/licenses/eda/license.dat)
or with the <port>@<hostname> notation, where <port> is the license port number and <hostname> is the license server’s host name. For example, 1900@my_lic_server.

Renewing the License

The software license expires 12 months after the date of purchase. To renew an expired license file, revisit the SSLC. You can renew a license only for the version that you purchased.

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