Welcome to Xilinx's newest software release, known as Foundation® Series 1.5. Xilinx is the world's largest supplier of programmable logic solutions, including industry-leading device architectures and world-class design software.
This release contains many enhancements and additions. The result is a product that provides hardware designers with an improved suite of tools for designing and implementing Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs).
If you ordered the Base Express or Foundation Express product, then you also received the Synopsys® HDL synthesis and optimization tool that can be used to create designs from VHDL and Verilog® HDL. See the “In-Depth Tutorial - HDL-Based Design” chapter in this manual for a detailed discussion on designing with HDL. Also see the “HDL Design Entry and Synthesis” chapter in the Foundation Series User Guide for information on how to use the Foundation GUIs to analyze, optimize, and synthesize HDL designs.
Refer to the Foundation Express online DynaText documentation, VHDL Reference Guide and Verilog Reference Guide, for information on how to use VHDL and Verilog to create designs.
This chapter contains the following sections:
Foundation Series 1.5 is intended for use with the Xilinx design implementation tools, such as PAR, MAP, and FIT. Compatibility with the XNF (logical) design files that were used in previous XACTstep releases has been preserved.
To see a step-by-step installation procedure, see the “Installing Foundation” chapter in the Foundation Series 1.5 Install and Release Document.
