Vitis tools provide two distinct approaches to design development: the Vitis Integrated Flow and the Vitis Export to Vivado Flow. Each approach supports different needs.
The Vitis Integrated Flow prioritizes ease of use and automation. This flow streamlines the design process and reduces development time, which makes it ideal for new users and for rapid prototyping.
The Vitis Export to Vivado Flow emphasizes synthesis and implementation control. It uses the advanced features of Vivado to give you precise control over design optimization, which makes it well-suited for experienced users working on demanding projects.
The Vitis Integrated Flow is simple and fast; the Vitis Export to Vivado Flow is powerful and customizable. Choose the flow that best aligns with your experience and project requirements.
Vitis Subsystem enables platform-independent development that you can use in both the Vitis Integrated Flow and the Vitis Export to Vivado Flow by preparing AI Engine and PL kernels with a part number as the target instead of a platform. Vitis Subsystem Flow shows this feature combined with the Vitis Export to Vivado Flow.
Common Steps for the Flows
Vitis development begins when you choose your target device by selecting either a specific part or a board. This selection is essential for preparing the hardware platform, which forms the foundation for your bootable design. You later extend this platform in Vitis to host the signal and data processing algorithms.
For AMD development boards, Vitis provides prebuilt and tested base platforms that help you begin development quickly. If you are working with custom boards or designs, you must create the hardware platform in Vivado.
The AMD Embedded Development Framework enables easier transitions between Linux OS, RTOS, and bare-metal stacks. This framework helps the hardware development process because it lets you begin with a feature-rich Linux OS that supports testing on the target. As the design matures, you can replace the embedded stack with a lightweight OS build or a multi-domain solution to meet the final design requirements.
The part option supports platform-independent design, compilation, and verification of HLS kernels and AI Engine graph components.
The following sections describe the different Vitis design flows and highlight their advantages and differences to help you choose the best approach for your project.
- Use the part option to evaluate Vitis kernel portability before you commit a design to a specific device or migrate to a new device.
- Reuse Vitis kernels across designs by integrating them into different extensible platforms.
- Use multistage boot with Segmented Configuration to minimize the need to rebuild the OS after Vitis hardware updates.