Magellan Quickstart Guide

What is Magellan?
Magellan is a debugging environment and waveform display tool which allows you to graphically traverse your verilog hierarchy to select/display signals. In order to use this tool it is necessary to place a few lines in your verilog code which will write your simulation data to a file readable by navvcd.

Setup:
In order to run Magellan, you need to source /usr/class/ee/ssi/DOT.cshrc. If you are currently taking EE271 or EE272 then this file is already sourced for you.

What do I need to add to my verilog code?
The following commands may be added to the initial block of your top-level verilog code.

Command	Function Description	File Output
$ssi_navdbase ("nav.dbase","top.v")	Creates a gate level connectivity file of your verilog model.	nav.dbase
$dumpvars	Creates an ascii file which contains simulation data. (fast for verilog simulation, slower for navvcd loading)	verilog.dump
$ssi_navconfigure("-dumpsize #Mb", "-dumpname circ.dump") $ssi_navdump	These two commands will create a circular dump file that saves only the last X Mb of simulation data. (slower for verilog simulation, faster for navvcd loading)	circ.dump

(Note: You do not want to have BOTH $ssi_navdump and $dumpvars in your verilog code.)

Navvcd:
navvcd is a command which starts magellan and reads in your dump file.

Syntax: navvcd [arguments] [vcd_file_name] &
Arguments:
o -start [start time] start loading data at this simulation time.
o -stop [stop time] stop loading data at this simulation time.
o -convert [file name] converts dump file to a file named, [file name]. (i.e. this command may be used to convert an ASCII dump to a faster binary format.)

Note: If you do not specifiy a vcd_file_name then navvcd will assume that you are using verilog.dump.

Page modified by Tim Paaske; / Last Updated 1/20/99