Release Notes For ModelSim Altera 10.3e

Feb 23 2015

Copyright 1991-2015 Mentor Graphics Corporation
All rights reserved.
This document contains information that is proprietary to Mentor Graphics
Corporation. The original recipient of this document may duplicate this
document in whole or in part for internal business purposes only, provided
that this entire notice appears in all copies. In duplicating any part of
this document the recipient agrees to make every reasonable effort to
prevent the unauthorized use and distribution of the proprietary
information.

TRADEMARKS: The trademarks, logos and service marks ("Marks") used herein
are the property of Mentor Graphics Corporation or other third parties.
No one is permitted to use these Marks without the prior written consent
of Mentor Graphics or the respective third-party owner. The use herein
of a third-party Mark is not an attempt to indicate Mentor Graphics as a
source of a product, but is intended to indicate a product from, or
associated with, a particular third party. The following are trademarks of
of Mentor Graphics Corporation: Questa, ModelSim, JobSpy, and Signal Spy.
A current list of Mentor Graphics trademarks may be viewed at
www.mentor.com/terms_conditions/trademarks.cfm.

End-User License Agreement: You can print a copy of the End-User License
Agreement from: www.mentor.com/terms_conditions/enduser.cfm.

How to Get Support
ModelSim Altera is supported by Altera Corporation
- World-Wide-Web Support
  http://www.altera.com/mySupport

Key Information

The following lists the supported platforms:
- win32aloem - Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8
- linuxaloem - RedHat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 and 11

Release Announcements in 10.3e

[nodvtid] -
In the next major release (10.4), support for Windows XP and Windows Vista will be discontinued.

[10.3e] Licensing Information
There is no licensing change between release 10.3 and 10.3e.
However if you are migrating to 10.3e from a release like 10.2 and older, please note the following:
- Starting 10.3, it uses FLEXnet v11.11.1.1. The vendor daemons and lmgrd that are shipped with this release will be FLEXnet version 11.11.1.1.
- For floating licenses it will be necessary to verify that the vendor daemon (i.e., mgcld) and the license server (i.e., lmgrd) have FLEXnet versions equal to or greater than 11.11.1.1. If the current FLEXnet version of your vendor daemon and lmgrd are less than 11.11.1.1 then it will be necessary to stop your license server and restart it using the vendor daemon and lmgrd contained in this release.
- If you use node locked licenses you don't need to do anything.
[10.3b] OVL is upgraded to v2.8.1.
[10.3b] The VHDL OSVVM (Open Source VHDL Verification Methodology) library, sources and documentation have been updated to version 2014.01. Dependency checks in vopt and vsim will force recompilation of designs that use the osvvm library. If optimization is performed using vopt, the optimizer will automatically generate new optimized design units. Without the optimization step, vsim will detect dependency errors.
[10.3] Support for RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4.0 has been discontinued.
[10.2] Support for Solaris SPARC and Solaris x86 has been discontinued. All Solaris OS platforms are not supported.
[10.2] Support for RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 3.0 and Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLES) 9 has been discontinued.
[10.1] Support for GCC versions gcc-4.1.2-sunos510/gcc-4.1.2-sunos510x86 has been discontinued.
[10.0] Support for Solaris 8 and Solaris 9 has been discontinued.

Base Product Specifications in 10.3e

[nodvtid] -
[Supported Platforms]
Linux RHEL 5 x86/x86-64
Linux RHEL 6 x86/x86-64
Linux SLES 10 x86/x86-64
Linux SLES 11 x86/x86-64
Windows 7 x86/x64
Windows 8 x86/x64
Windows XP
Windows Vista

[Supported GCC Compilers (for SystemC)]
gcc-4.5.0-linux/gcc-4.5.0-linux_x86_64
gcc-4.3.3-linux/gcc-4.3.3-linux_x86_64
gcc-4.2.1-mingw32vc9

[OVL (shipped with product)]
v2.8.1

[VHDL OSVVM (shipped with product)]
v2014.01

[Licensing]
FLEXnet v11.11.1.1
MSL v2013_3
MGLS v9.10_7.2
PCLS v9.10.7.2

Compatibility Issues with Release 10.3e

Key Information Compatibility

dvt73631 - (results) VHDL 2008 users who use generic packages or subprograms must refresh the associated design units or recompile from source code with this release. Changes made for correctness affect internal data structures and are incompatible with vhdl-2008 design units generated with earlier releases.

User Interface Compatibility

dvt71982 - (results) Individual 2-state SV struct field values could be shown incorrectly in the Objects window. This has been corrected.
dvt70169 - (results) Logging a System Verilog interface port would result in the actual interface being logged, but not the port. The fix ensures that the port AND the actual interface are logged so that post-simulation viewing of the WLF file will contain both the port and the actual interface. NOTE: This required a WLF file version change. This makes WLF files written with this version of Modelsim/Questa incompatible and unreadable by older version of Modelsim/Questa.
[nodvtid] - (results) A new feature called VHDL Access Path Expressions has been introduced which provides improved visibility and a more intuitive way of viewing VHDL access variables and objects in the Wave Window. Some of the features of vhdl access path expressions are:
- More descriptive pointer values. Values are Dynamic Object Identifiers instead of hexadecimal memory address.
- Access references may be expanded in place in the wave window rather than having to inspect individual access objects one by one.
- Ability to add access_var.all to see dereferenced object values.
- Ability to "cast" unconstrained arrays to constrained array type.
- The [accessinfo] command gives metrix and reports about access object usage.
- Enabled with -accessobjdebug switch or AccessObjDebug modelsim.ini variable setting.

VHDL Compatibility

dvt71619 - (results) On 64 bits, array shift and rotate operations whose second operand ( shift/rotate amount) is INTEGER'LEFT would generate a stack overflow error. This has been fixed and the result when the shift/rotate amount is INTEGER'LEFT on both 64 and 32 bit has been changed to generate the correct value.

General Defects Repaired in 10.3e

dvt70157 - Restored vmake's behavior for VHDL design units to better deal with building incrementally and use of vcom's "-f" switch.

User Interface Defects Repaired in 10.3e

dvt63858 - Toggling the "Within Cells" mode of the Memory List window while a search filter is in use can cause the display of an incomplete list of memories. This issues has been resolved.
dvt71982 - (results) Individual 2-state SV struct field values could be shown incorrectly in the Objects window. This has been corrected.
dvt64155 - Two new radixes have been implemented, sfixed and ufixed (signed fixed and unsigned fixed, respectively.) Values may be displayed using these radixes, for example, [examine -radix ufixed var] might produce the value 1.375. The criteria for displaying an object as sfixed or ufixed is that the type of the object must be an array of std_ulogic elements between 2 and 64 bits long with a descending range. (The set of supported types may increase in the future.) The binary point for the value is implicitly located between the 0th and -1st elements of the array. The index range for the type need not include 0 or -1, for example (-4 downto -8) in which case the value will be extended for conversion, as appropriate. If the type does not meet these criteria the value will be displayed as decimal or unsigned, respectively. The radix command, global radix dialog and wave window radix menus support these radixes.
dvt71287 - The "Fixed Point Radix" dialog box was missing the radix "decimal" as a possible base type. This has been corrected. Decimal is now the default base selection in the dialog.
dvt74014 - A malformed [add wave] command can cause the UI to crash.
dvt74038 - A user defined keyboard short-cut bound to the Simulate->Step->Step commands, or any other global menu operations do not work. This has been resolved.
dvt74187 - The wrong instance scope will sometimes be used when displaying a signals declaration in the Source window from the Wave window.
dvt74126 - In Questa, the "change" command could crash or incorrectly ignore ".super" psuedo scope. This has been corrected.
dvt29745 - Using the Library window popup menu to invoke Simulate (start a simulation) will sometimes produce an error message and fail to launch the simulation. This occurs after performing a design optimization from the Library window.
dvt74813 - Mouse Middle Button zoom-out stroke does not work in Wave window when the waveform view starts at 0.
dvt70169 - (results) Logging a System Verilog interface port would result in the actual interface being logged, but not the port. The fix ensures that the port AND the actual interface are logged so that post-simulation viewing of the WLF file will contain both the port and the actual interface. NOTE: This required a WLF file version change. This makes WLF files written with this version of Modelsim/Questa incompatible and unreadable by older version of Modelsim/Questa.

SystemVerilog Defects Repaired in 10.3e

dvt70882 - A bit-select of a hierarchical reference connected to a module input port produced incorrect results in some cases if the bit-select index also contained a hierarchical reference.
[nodvtid] - Array manipluation functions like "arr.find_first_index(x) with ...condition..." would incorrectly report the error "No field named 'x'" in some cases.
dvt73472 - vsim gave incorrect result when using tagged union over an expression with different size elements.
dvt73470 - vlog/vopt gave internal error in vgenexpr.c(2897) when a wait statement is over a method call of an element of a class array.
dvt74214 - Fixed a crash in a DPI import call caused by using class member fields as the actual arguments of unsized packed open array.
dvt74468 - The implied @* sensitivity should exclude variables referenced within a sequential delay.
dvt73310 - Traversing individual words of large SV memories using vpi_iterate/vpi_scan functions caused huge memory usage.

VHDL Defects Repaired in 10.3e

dvt67672 - An array aggregate with an OTHERS choice in an O'SUBTYPE or A'ELEMENT context was erroneously being flagged as an Error. This has been fixed.
dvt71619 - (results) On 64 bits, array shift and rotate operations whose second operand ( shift/rotate amount) is INTEGER'LEFT would generate a stack overflow error. This has been fixed and the result when the shift/rotate amount is INTEGER'LEFT on both 64 and 32 bit has been changed to generate the correct value.
dvt72143 - If an uninstantiated package contains signal declarations, and an instance of the package is associated with an interface package in an entity, package, or subprogram instantiation, accesses to the signals could lead to simulator error messages of the form:
```
# ** INTERNAL ERROR: pkgref: export lookup failed for package #8[7]
```
dvt72793 - A PROCESS(ALL) statement in which the ALL represents no signals would result in the process having no termination (infinite loop).
dvt73051 - Fixed elaboration crash with subelement association. The formal must be an element or subelement of a multidimensional port and the actually a 2008 signal expression.
[nodvtid] - Aggregates of signals in subprograms, either as parameters to other subprogram, or as targets of signal assignments could cause a crash if the aggregate contained both parameters and non-parameter signals.
dvt74124 - Vcom could fail with an internal error when a port map statement is present on a block
dvt74313 - If an attribute that returned a range is used as the expression to a return statement, incorrect machine code could be generated. A range is not a valid return value and is now flagged as an error a compile time.
[nodvtid] - Logging of composite type variables with embedded access type subelements would sometimes not detect and record changes to those subelements.

General Enhancements in 10.3e

dvt68871 - Added support in vlog, vcom and vopt to automatically create missing work libraries. Vlog/vcom/vopt command-line option '-nocreatelib', or modelsim.ini variable 'CreateLib', may be used to stop automatic creation of missing work libraries and revert back to the old (10.3x and earlier) behavior.
dvt73792 -
1. The vsim "checkpoint" command now accepts a file or a directory as the pathname.
Syntax:
checkpoint [-dir] <pathname>
The following are the two valid scenarios for specifying a directory as the <pathname>. In both these cases a checkpoint file named 'vsim.cpt' is created in the specified directory.
- - The "-dir" option is specified with the <pathname>. If the directory doesn't exist then a new one is created.
- - The "-dir" option is not specified with the <pathname> but it represents a pre-exisiting directory.
It is an error if "-dir" is specified but the <pathname> represents a regular file.

2. vsim's "restore" CLI command and the command line switch "-restore" now accept a file or a directory as the pathname. (The syntax has not changed, only the semantics).
Syntax:
restore <pathname>
- - If the <pathname> represents a pre-exisiting directory, then a checkpoint file named 'vsim.cpt' must exist in the specified directory.
- - Otherwise the <pathname> must represent a checkpoint file.
3. When the checkpoint is represented by a directory the following new function, declared in "mti.h" file, returns that directory name.
extern char * mti_GetCheckpointDirname PROTO((void));

User Interface Enhancements in 10.3e

dvt10305 - The [add log], [add wave] and [add list] commands have the new -filter and -nofilter switches to allow a one-time modification of the WildcardFilter in the command invocation. The commands can take as many [-filter <f>] and [-nofilter <f>] arguments as the user would like to specify. The valid filters are exactly the same set of words that can be applied to the WildcardFilter. The filter used during a command starts with the WildcardFilter and then applies the user specified filters, if any. The -filter values are added to the filter, the -nofilter values are removed from the filter. They are applied in the order specified so conflicts are resolved with the last specified wins.
[nodvtid] - (results) A new feature called VHDL Access Path Expressions has been introduced which provides improved visibility and a more intuitive way of viewing VHDL access variables and objects in the Wave Window. Some of the features of vhdl access path expressions are:
- More descriptive pointer values. Values are Dynamic Object Identifiers instead of hexadecimal memory address.
- Access references may be expanded in place in the wave window rather than having to inspect individual access objects one by one.
- Ability to add access_var.all to see dereferenced object values.
- Ability to "cast" unconstrained arrays to constrained array type.
- The [accessinfo] command gives metrix and reports about access object usage.
- Enabled with -accessobjdebug switch or AccessObjDebug modelsim.ini variable setting.