Generating a VCD File in the IDE - 2024.2 English

AI Engine Tools and Flows User Guide (UG1076)

Document ID
UG1076
Release Date
2024-11-28
Version
2024.2 English

To generate a VCD file from the Vitis IDE

  1. From the Flow Navigator, click the AI Engine Run Settings button, as shown in below image.
  2. Click the launch.json file of the aiesimulator, and set the fields as follows:
    • Select the Enable Trace check box.
    • Set Trace Type to VCD.
    • Enter a filename in the VCD File Name field.
  3. Right-click on your AI Engine graph project from the Explorer view and select Run As > Run Configurations. This opens up the Run Configurations dialog box for the current project.
  4. Select the AI Engine Emulator option and double-click to open a new configuration. Select the Generate Trace check box to enable trace capture, and select the VCD Trace button. By default, this produces a VCD dump in a file called foo.vcd in the current directory. You can rename the file if you like. By default, CLK and STREAM_SWITCH signals are disabled from full VCD trace.

The VCD file can also be generated by invoking the AI Engine simulator with the --dump-vcd <filename> option on the command line. The VCD file is generated in the same directory as the simulation is run. Assuming that the program is compiled using the AI Engine compiler, the simulator can be invoked in a shell with the VCD option.

$ aiesimulator –-pkg-dir=./Work --dump-vcd=foo

This command produces the VCD file (foo.vcd) which is written to the current directory.