Where is Library information

[minigecko]

Where do I find information on library functions?

I am unsure of the structure and availibility of librarys, megafunctions, megaCore IP's and other words often found on my searches. The way I think it may work is that megafunctions are bits of example code from altera, that are not well documented and minimalisticly labeled. I see Librarys are the same as librarys in C. I need to find the documentation of these librarys, eg, how do I find out the std_logic_vector can understand +1 if I add the line "use IEEE.std_logic_arith.all;". And the issue at the moment, i need to do some funky maths including cosine's, as well as squared's and divisions. is there somewhere i can search "cos" and get given a list of related operators / functions and examples and the librarys they are in?

Please help me find library documentation so I know what functionality is available for my code.

Thanks

 

[jeandelfrigo]

Minigecko,

The location of the libraries depends a bit on the synthesis or simulation tool you use.
I'll try to find out were these libs are located for altera.

The Megacore IP is bits of VHDL code written and optimised by altera for specific hardware solutions (e.g. DDR controller, FFT, etc). You need to have access to these IP cores (= you have to have a licence to use them) Since altera asks money in return the code is not open source you instantiate these cores via the tools.
Maybe you can find some kind of datasheet on the Altera website for a certain core, I'm not sure I haven't used Altera IP at this moment.

For the other libs I'll look it up.

Some comment though. VHDL is a hardware description language. This means that every line or couple of lines is translated into harware (FF, LUT, multiplier, etc) so squares divisions and cosines aren't as easily done as in C or any other SW language.

I'm not saying these things are impossible to do, but they are require some attention, in a way you need to write a peace of Hardware that can calculate squares or divide.

Mathematics in VHDL requires some prestudy and a good knowledge of the mathematical function you want to implement.

Succes, I'll let you know wehere to find the common libs.

Best regards
jeandelfrigo