Release Notes For ModelSim Altera 10.4c

Aug 12 2015

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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 7, Windows 8
- linuxaloem - RedHat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 and 11

Release Announcements in 10.4c

[nodvtid] -
[10.4] Support for Windows XP and Windows Vista has been discontinued.
[10.4] Licensing Information
There is no licensing change between release 10.3 and 10.4.
However if you are migrating to 10.4 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 10.4c

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

[Supported GCC Compilers (for SystemC)]
gcc-4.7.4-linux/gcc-4.7.4-linux_x86_64
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)]
v2014.07

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

Compatibility Issues with Release 10.4c

General Defects Repaired in 10.4c

dvt78556 - When the path to the tmp directory (e.g. /tmp on linux) is redirected to a path that contains spaces, various errors can occur that are not obviously related to the tmp directory. The tmp directory is more commonly redirected on the Windows platform.

User Interface Defects Repaired in 10.4c

dvt67302 - The "edit" command and other uses of the PrefMain(Editor) setting failed to correctly invoke the user specified editor application whenever the application pathname contains spaces.
dvt63029 - Under rare circumstances, single stepping a simulation will hang the simulator requiring the user to 'kill' the simulation in order to gain control. This issue has been resolved.
dvt78368 - Use of -g command-line option reports a GUI startup error. This issue has been resolved.
dvt78370 - Windows only: On invoking "questasim.exe -do file.do", the "-do" option is ignored resulting in the file being opened in the source window. This issue has been resolved.
dvt69368 - If a process is labeled with the same name as it's inclosing architecture, a breakpoint within the process will not display the location correctly when the simulation stops. This issue has been resolved.
dvt34881 - The list of recent Directories and recent Projects under the File menu can now be adjusted to list as many locations as the user wants. Two new preference settings have been added: PrefMain(recentDirectoryLimit) and PrefMain(recentProjectLimit). The default is no 8 entries for each list. The pull down menu entries will also display the full path when hovering over the particular item. This will make identifying long path names easier.
dvt68664 - Export Image for the Wave window would hang the user interface and the desktop. This issue has been resolved.
dvt67339 - Protected design units would not be displayed in the Library window of the GUI, even though they are listed when using the "vdir" command.
dvt79321 - When using -batch mode, continuation lines in a "do" file are not interpreted correctly. This issue has been resolved.
dvt77355 - When the GUI opens with a small initial window size, the application will hang until the window size is made larger. This issue has been resolved.

SystemVerilog Defects Repaired in 10.4c

[nodvtid] - In some cases redefined macros were not overwriting previous macro definitions.

VHDL Defects Repaired in 10.4c

dvt79007 - A package-declared signal used as an element of an array begin associated via individual association with a class signal procedure formal, where the procedure is declared in a place that is not the package, could cause a crash.
dvt79195 - Type conversion from a floating point value to an integer value of type INTEGER would incorrectly report an error if the value was the legal value of -2147483648; likewise for 2147483647.
dvt78557 - Reference to an element or slice of a signal array whose elements are an interface type could result in a fatal error with the following message:
```
** Fatal: (SIGSEGV) Bad handle or reference.
```
dvt79119 - The "change" command would work if attempted on an access object or member of such.

SystemC Defects Repaired in 10.4c

dvt78678 - Fixed sccom leaving object files in the current working directory on a compile failure.

User Interface Enhancements in 10.4c

dvt27751 - Support two new variations for the "bp" command. Allows specifying the line-number only in the command. The command will use the source file of the current context. For example:

    bp 57

The "bp" command will also accept the common gdb syntax of "file-name:line-number", for example:

    bp dut.sv:57

Here is the full usage description for the "bp" command:

# Usage:
# HDL breakpoints:
#  bp location [options] [{command ...}]
#    location: {[filename] line_number | filename:line_number | in task_or_fcn}
#    options: [-id id#] [-label label] [-disable] [-uvm] [[-inst region]...]
#             [-cond {condition_expression}] [-appendinst]
# 
# C breakpoints:
#  bp -c location [options]
#    location: {function_name | line_number | filename:line_number | *0xhex_address}
#    options: [-disable] [[-inst {systemc_module_instance_name}]...]
#             [-cond {condition_expression}] [-appendinst]
# 
# Information:
#   bp [-query filename [line_number [line_number]]]

dvt30446 - Two enhancements have been added to the run & step commands, reporting of the simulation time and delta when the run operation completes, and reporting the run status when the run operation completes. These reports are enabled by setting the preference variable PrefMain(noRunTimeMsg) and PrefMain(noRunStatusMsg) respectively to 0. Here is an example of these reports:
```
VSIM 1> run 105
VSIM 2> set PrefMain(noRunTimeMsg) 0
# 0
VSIM 3> run 112
# Time: @217 ns 0       
VSIM 4> set PrefMain(noRunStatusMsg) 0
# 0
VSIM 5> run 100
# Time: @317 ns 0       
# Status: ready end
VSIM 6> set PrefMain(noRunTimeMsg) 1
# 1
VSIM 7> run 50
# Status: ready end
VSIM 8> set PrefMain(noRunStatusMsg) 1
# 1
VSIM 9> run 55
VSIM 10> 
```
dvt9844 - The "when" command has been enhanced to support repeating time breakpoints. The -repeat switch works with "when" breakpoint expressions involving time ($now). Normally expressions involving $now will only trigger once. With the -repeat option the "when" breakpoint will reestablish the breakpoint when triggered so that it will fire again for the next time period.