Automated Conversion of Microchip Libero projects into ALINT-PRO

Aldec's ALINT-PRO design verification solution performs static RTL and design constraints code analysis to uncover critical design issues early in the design cycle. The product helps FPGA developers rise to the challenge of designing large FPGA designs and multiprocessor system on chip (MPSOC) devices that include high-capacity and high-performance FPGA hardware.

The solution supports running rule checks for designs that target FPGAs from Xilinx, Intel FPGA, Microchip and Lattice with minimal setup. It also offers the latest versions of FPGA vendor libraries, which are pre-built, installed by default, and pre-configured for advanced timing and CDC rule checks.

In addition, ALINT-PRO provides automated project conversion from the most popular FPGA design environments - Xilinx Vivado, Intel FPGA Quartus and Microchip Libero. The Microchip Libero project conversion support was added recently in the 2022.12 ALINT-PRO Release.

The automated project conversion functionality helps designers prepare and run static verification of FPGA projects in ALINT-PRO. As part of the conversion, workspaces and projects are created and populated with code and settings allowing designers to immediately run static code verification.

Let's take a look at Microchip's Libero project conversion procedure more closely.

Microchip Libero Projects Conversion

There are two ways to run project conversion, either by using the GUI or by running a conversion command from the console.

To use the GUI, click on Tools | Convert | PRJX Project and specify the full path to the Microsemi Libero design project file with .prjx extension as well as the path to the automatically generated output ALINT-PRO project directory. By default, the output ALINT-PRO project will be created in the same directory where the Libero project file resides:

After clicking the "Next" button, the conversion Workspace structure will be presented. In instances where the Libero project contains links to non-existing project files, these files are marked in red and it is recommended to halt the conversion and fix the Libero project in its native development environment.

Clicking on the "Finish" button will launch the conversion process and the converted project (workspace) will appear in ALINT-PRO's GUI. The top-level Libero Project will appear in bold under the "work" directory.

To convert the project using commands, run convert.prjx.project command from the console window. The command has the following syntax:

Compared to the GUI-based route, the conversion command provides more options including:

After completing the project conversion into ALINT-PRO's environment, users may change the project's rules selections like add waivers, etc. At the same time, users may continue developing RTL code within the Libero project. Then, the changed Libero project can be converted again for static verification in ALINT-PRO.

By default, ALINT-PRO will keep project-specific properties such as policy and waivers for the repeated conversions. Using the -force option will reset all the project properties to the default one, which will remove all waivers and it'll use the Global policy settings on each generated project.