Intel® Simics® Simulator for Intel® FPGAs: User Guide

ID 784383
Date 7/08/2024
Public
Document Table of Contents

4.1. Installing the Intel® Simics® Simulator for Intel® FPGAs on Linux* Systems

Tip: You can install the Intel® Simics® Simulator for Intel® FPGAs in Windows* Subsystem for Linux* 2 (WSL 2 ) environments on systems running Windows 10 Version 1903 or later. Your WSL 2 Linux environment must meet the requirements listed in this section.

Host Machine Hardware Requirements

The minimum hardware requirements to install the Intel® Simics® Simulator for Intel® FPGAs on Linux systems are as follows:

  • 64-bit processor (for example, 6th Gen Intel Core™ or later)

    If you install the Intel® Simics® Simulator for Intel® FPGAs on a virtual machine, the hypervisor might not report the underlying CPU model correctly. In this case, the Intel® Simics® Simulator for Intel® FPGAs might give you a warning message.

  • 16 GB of RAM memory
  • 8 GB of disk space

Host Machine Software Requirements

The minimum software requirements to install the Intel® Simics® Simulator for Intel® FPGAs on Linux* systems are as follows:

  • Operating system: Modern 64-bit Linux distribution (such as Ubuntu 20.04 or later). If you use SUSE* Linux Enterprise Server, you must use SUSE* Linux Enterprise Server 15 or later.
  • GCC 6.3 compiler or higher
    Note: For forward compatibility with the Intel® Simics® Simulator for Intel® FPGAs version 6.0.171 and higher, the compiler needs to support DWARF-5 format.
  • g++ 9.4 or higher
  • GNU make 4.1 or higher

The following software packages are used in some examples in this document:

  • aarch64-none-linux-gnu-gcc - GCC compiler for Arm* architecture (Linux x86_64 toolchain)
  • aarch64-none-linux-gnu-gdb – GDB debugger for Arm* architecture (Linux x86_64 toolchain)
  • TFTP Server for Linux x86_64

Installing Intel® Simics® Simulator for Intel® FPGAs

Install the Intel® Simics® Simulator for Intel® FPGAs as follows:

  1. Download the Intel® Simics® Simulator for Intel® FPGAs from the Intel FPGA Software Download Center at the following location:

    https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/software-kit/current/775783.html

    The name of the downloaded file is IntelSimicsSetup-intel-fpga-ext_nn.n.nnn-linux.run, where nn.n.nnn is the version and build number of the Intel® Simics® Simulator for Intel® FPGAs.

  2. Run the installer with the following command:
    ./IntelSimicsSetup-intel-fpga-ext_nn.n.nnn-linux.run
  3. Complete the installation wizard. The wizard walks you through accepting the license agreement and choosing (and creating, if needed) a installation directory for the Intel® Simics® Simulator for Intel® FPGAs.

    This document refers to the installation directory as <simics_installdir> .

  4. Click Finish in the wizard after the installation finishes to exit the wizard. After installation wizard completes the installation, the following directories are created under the installation directory:
    • logs: Contains the installation log files.
    • simics: Contains the following subfolders:
      • bin Contains the simics_intelfpga_cli executable file.
      • platforms: Contains the Intel® Simics® Virtual Platforms.
      • simics-version : Contains files for the Intel® Simics® base package.
      • simics-intelfpga-ext-version Contains the Intel FPGA packages, including Intel® Simics® models of supported Intel FPGA devices.
    • uninstall: Contains the uninstaller.
  5. Add <simics_installdir>/bin to your PATH environment variable.