APS/Vivado Basics/01. New project.md

Creating a New Project in Vivado

To create a new project in Vivado for the Nexys A7 development board, follow the steps below.

1. Launch Vivado.

2. Click Create Project.

3. In the dialog that appears, click Next.

4. Enter the project name (no spaces or Cyrillic characters) → Select the project folder → Enable the Create project subdirectory checkbox → Click Next.

5. Select RTL Project → Enable the Do not specify sources at this time checkbox → Click Next.

6. Set the following filters to narrow the FPGA list:

   • Family: Artix 7
   • Package: csg324
   • Speed: -1

   Fig. 1 shows the window with the applied filters.

7. In the list, select the FPGA xc7a100tcsg324-1 (located at the bottom) → Click Next.

8. Click Finish.

Figure 1. Example of filter settings for selecting the FPGA used in Nexys A7.

After clicking Finish, the newly created project window will open. Now configure the project settings. To do this, click the Settings button in the Flow Navigator panel on the left side of Vivado.

New Project Settings

Simulation Time Configuration

First, specify how much simulation time will be modeled when the simulation is launched. In the Project Settings group, select Simulation. On the page that opens, go to the Simulation tab and set the xsim.simulate.runtime field to 1s. This means that by default, one second of circuit operation will be simulated. Fig. 2 shows an example of this setting. Do not close the settings window yet.

Figure 2. Example of simulation time configuration.

One second is a very large value, many orders of magnitude greater than the simulation time in most lab assignments. However, the testbench in every lab will stop the simulation early. By setting such a large value, we avoid having to specify the simulation duration each time: the simulation will simply run until it stops on its own, but if the testbench fails to stop it for some reason, we know it will stop automatically after 1 s.

Vivado Settings

Pop-up Window Configuration

Also configure the pop-up window behavior when launching certain tools. Go to Window Behavior -> Confirmations in the global settings group (Tool Settings) and uncheck the options highlighted with red rectangles in Figure 3.

This will eliminate the persistent pop-up windows that in most cases simply require clicking "OK".

Figure 3. Example of pop-up window configuration.

Code Completion Settings

When working in Vivado, you may find the built-in code completion feature inconvenient. While active, Vivado attempts to suggest matching keywords as you type (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. Example of the code completion feature enabled.

In this situation, pressing Enter will not move the cursor to a new line. Instead, the active suggestion will be selected and the keyword end will be completed to endcase. To dismiss the list, press ESC or click anywhere outside the list.

To disable the list (or configure it to appear only on demand), go to Text Editor -> Code completion in the Vivado settings. You can choose one of three options (see Figure 5):

1. Display list of choices on demand — the list appears only when you press CTRL+Space.
2. Display list of choices as you type — the list appears automatically as you type.
3. Disable code completion — the list never appears.

Figure 5. Settings for the Code completion section.

Font Settings

In the Text Editor settings group, you can also configure the size, color, and font used by the text editor. This is done in the Fonts and colors section (see Figure 6).

Figure 6. Settings for the Fonts and colors section.

Project creation and configuration is now complete.