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

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

4.3. Installing Ashling* RiscFree* IDE for Intel® FPGAs

The Ashling* RiscFree* IDE for Intel® FPGAs provides an IDE for Intel FPGA Arm* -based Hard Processor Systems and RISC-V* based Nios® V processors. Among other uses, you can use the Ashling* RiscFree* IDE for Intel® FPGAs to provide a GUI interface to control your Intel® Simics® simulation and debug your target software.
Without Ashling* RiscFree* IDE for Intel® FPGAs, you can only interact with your simulation through the Intel® Simics® CLI. The RiscFree* IDE provides a GUI view of your Intel® Simics® simulation and the following features:
  • You can control the simulation progress with a mouse and buttons in a GUI instead of entering commands on a CLI.
  • During simulation, you can debug target software using the RiscFree* debugger to view progress through your source code, set breakpoints, examine variable values and register contents, and view stack traces.
  • You can use the integration of RiscFree* IDE and Intel® Simics® Simulator as a complete development environment for your target software: write, test, simulate, and debug your target software on a target device in one place.

    Software development with RiscFree* IDE is outside of the scope of this user guide.

Installing RiscFree* IDE is optional. RiscFree* IDE is not required to use the Intel® Simics® Simulator for Intel® FPGAs. For more information about Ashling* RiscFree* IDE for Intel® FPGAs, including installation instructions, refer to Ashling* RiscFree* IDE for Intel® FPGAs User Guide .

For integrating RiscFree* IDE and Intel® Simics® Simulator, you can use the standalone installation option for RiscFree* IDE if you do not yet need Quartus® Prime software.

RiscFree* IDE also supports connecting to a remote Intel® Simics® Simulator, so you can have RiscFree* IDE and Intel® Simics® Simulator running on different operating systems. For information about connecting to a remote Intel® Simics® Simulator from RiscFree* IDE, refer to Remote Debugging with RiscFree* IDE

In a Microsoft* Windows* environment, you have the following options:
  • Install the Windows* version of Ashling* RiscFree* IDE for Intel® FPGAs,

    If you use the Windows version of Ashling* RiscFree* IDE for Intel® FPGAs, you must setup a remote connection to your Simics simulation even if your Simics simulation runs on the same machine in a WSL 2 environment. For instructions, refer to Remote Debugging With Intel Simics Simulation and RiscFree* IDE on Different Systems.

  • Install the Linux* version of Ashling* RiscFree* IDE for Intel® FPGAs in your WSL 2 environment.

    If you use the Linux* version of Ashling* RiscFree* IDE for Intel® FPGAs, ensure that your WSL 2 environment supports running Linux GUI applications.

If you run Intel® Simics® Simulator for Intel® FPGAs and Ashling* RiscFree* IDE for Intel® FPGAs on the same Linux* system (or WSL 2 environment), ensure that you add the path to RiscFree IDE to your PATH environment variable:
export PATH=<path_to_RiscFree IDE exectuable>:$PATH