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Lattice Diamond Design Software


Diamond PR photoLattice Diamond design software offers leading-edge design and implementation tools optimized for cost sensitive, low-power Lattice FPGA architectures. Diamond is the next generation replacement for ispLEVER featuring design exploration, ease of use, improved design flow, and numerous other enhancements. The combination of new and enhanced features allows users to complete designs faster, easier, and with better results than ever before.

Diamond Software

Lattice Diamond is the new flagship logic design environment for Lattice FPGA products. Diamond is available as a download from the Lattice website for both Windows and Linux. Once downloaded and installed, it can be used with either a free license or a subscription license. Diamond software only needs to be downloaded and installed once.

Diamond Software Free License

A free license can be requested from the Lattice website. This license provides access to many popular Lattice devices such as MachXO and LatticeECP2 at no cost. It also includes Synopsys Synplify Pro for Lattice synthesis and Aldec Lattice Web Edition II simulation software.

Diamond Software Subscription License

A subscription license can be purchased which adds support for all Lattice FPGAs including the latest LatticeECP3 devices. It includes Synopsys Synplify Pro for Lattice synthesis and Aldec Lattice Edition II mixed language simulator for increased capacity and performance. The subscription license also enables both the new Diamond software and existing ispLEVER software from a single license.

 

Powerful New Features

Design Exploration Made Easy

Projects / Implementations / Strategies

Design projects in Diamond offer an order of magnitude increased functionality by allowing more robust projects and capabilities that allow design exploration. Key improvements to Diamond projects include the following:

  • Allow the mixing of Verilog, VHDL, EDIF, and schematic sources
  • Implementations, allow multiple versions of a design within a single project
  • Strategies allow implementation “recipes” to be applied to any implementation within a project or shared between projects
  • Manage and choose files for constraints, timing analysis, power calculation, and hardware debug
  • Use Run Manager view to allow parallel processing of multiple implementations in order to explore design alternatives for the best results.

Analyzing Your Design with HDL Code Checking

Save time by analyzing your design prior to synthesis with the new integrated HDL code checking capability.

Ease of Use Throughout

User Interface for a New Generation of Tools

The Diamond user interface combines leading edge features and customization while offering better ease of use. All the tools in Diamond now open in “Views” integrated into a common Diamond user interface and have the ability to be detached in separate windows. Once the operation for a single tool view is learned, this knowledge can be applied to other views. New features like the Start Page and Reports view allow easy access to information.

Speeding Common Functions

ECO Editor provides quick access to commonly used netlist editing functions such as sysIO settings, PLL parameters, and memory initialization. Programmer allows fast reprogramming of FPGAs once the hardware configuration has been setup with ispVM. Getting the job done more quickly is the goal of these tools

More Efficient Design Flow

Timing Analysis Easier and Faster

The new Timing Analysis view offers an easy to use graphical environment for navigating timing information. A key new benefit in Timing Analysis view is rapidly updated analysis when timing constraints are changed. No longer must you re-implement your design to re-run a TRACE report.

Easy Design Export to Simulators

Diamond provides easy export of designs to simulators through the new Simulation Wizard.

Scripting with TCL

Diamond software adds new capabilities for scripting the design flow. Diamond specific TCL command dictionaries are available for projects, netlists, HDL code checking, power calculation, and hardware debug insertion and analysis.

 

Complete Design Environment

Diamond software is a robust and complete software environment from entering the design to programming your Lattice device. It uses proven implementation engine technology developed for six generations of tools. Diamond includes a complete set of tools covering all aspects of FPGA design.

  • Design Entry
  • Synthesis
  • Implementation
  • Analysis
  • On-chip Debug Hardware Analysis
  • Simulation
  • Programming

 

Powerful Third-Party Tools

Synopsys Synplify® Pro for Lattice Synthesis

Lattice Diamond includes the industry-leading synthesis solution, Synopsys Synplify Pro for Lattice, with a range of tools and features that help you manage large designs, and extract the very best fit and performance, optimized for Lattice FPGAs. Synplify Pro for Lattice also includes HDL Analyst, which automatically produces an RTL schematic of your design for analysis and cross-probing with RTL source code. Other advanced features include mixed VHDL and Verilog synthesis support, compile points, automatic re-timing (balancing registers across combinatorial logic) for improved performance, and automatic gated-clock and generated clock conversion for efficient implementation of RTL written for an ASIC into an FPGA.

Aldec Active-HDL® Simulation

The Lattice Diamond subscription license includes the fast, comprehensive and feature-rich simulation environment Active-HDL Lattice Edition II from Aldec. Active-HDL Lattice Edition II features mixed language simulation of VHDL and Verilog, and many advanced verification and debug features such as Language Assistant, Code Execution Tracing, Advanced Breakpoint Management and Memory Viewing. The Lattice Diamond free license includes Active-HDL Web Edition II which offers many of the same features with less capacity. Aldec Active-HDL Lattice Edition II and Active-HDL Web Edition II are available on Windows platforms only.

 

Learn More About Diamond

 

Choosing The Right Software Tool

The following matrix summarizes some of the more important features of the current Lattice FPGA & logic design software tools. For current Lattice FPGA devices, Lattice Diamond is the recommended design software. For Lattice CPLD devices, ispLEVER Classic is the required design software.

  Lattice Diamond
(subscription license)
Windows/Linux
Lattice Diamond
(free license)
Windows/Linux
ispLEVER Classic
Windows
     Lattice FPGA/CPLD Support
LatticeECP3 checkmark    
LatticeXP2 checkmark checkmark  
LatticeECP2M/S checkmark    
LatticeECP2 checkmark checkmark  
LatticeECP2S checkmark    
LatticeSC/M checkmark    
MachXO  checkmark checkmark  
LatticeECP & EC checkmark  checkmark  
LatticeXP checkmark  checkmark  
ispXPGA     checkmark
ORCA FPGA     checkmark
ORCA FPSC     checkmark
ispXPLD 5000MX     checkmark
ispMACH 4000B/C/V/Z/ZE     checkmark
ispMACH 5000VG     checkmark
MACH 4A3 / 4A5     checkmark
ispLSI2000/5000     checkmark
ispGDX/2     checkmark
ispGAL / GAL     checkmark
Software Features
Design Exploration  checkmark checkmark  
Project Management  checkmark checkmark checkmark
VHDL & Verilog Support  checkmark checkmark checkmark
EDIF Support checkmark checkmark checkmark
Schematic Support  checkmark checkmark checkmark
sysDSP Library for MATLAB/Simulink / ispLeverDSP  checkmark  checkmark  
ABEL     checkmark
IP and Module configuration  checkmark checkmark Module Only
Power Estimation & Calculation  checkmark checkmark  
Timing Analysis  checkmark checkmark checkmark
Integrated HDL Analysis checkmark  checkmark  
Floorplanning checkmark checkmark checkmark
EPIC Device Editor  checkmark  checkmark ORCA FPGA only
On-Chip Debug   checkmark  checkmark ispXPGA only
TCL Scripting Dictionaries    checkmark    checkmark  
3rd Party Software Included
Synplify PRO for Lattice - Synthesis from Synplicity  checkmark checkmark checkmark
Active-HDL Lattice Edition - Simulation from Aldec Windows Only    
Active-HDL Lattice Web Edition - Simulation from Aldec    Windows Only checkmark
Operating Systems
Windows 7 checkmark checkmark checkmark
Windows XP, Vista (32-bit)  checkmark checkmark checkmark
Linux (Redhat Enterprise v4, v5; Novell SUSE Enterprise v10 SP1, 11)   checkmark  checkmark  
Licensing & Updates
License Terms 1 Year Subscription 1 Year - Renewable 1 Year - Renewable
Node-Locked License checkmark checkmark checkmark
Floating License checkmark    

Note: Lattice Diamond subscription license allows either Diamond or the previous ispLEVER software to be run. Aldec simulation for Windows floating license requires a USB ID Key (ALDEC-USBKEY). Both of these products are available via the Lattice on-line store.