VHdbx: an X window system based high-level debugger for the VHDL simulation environment

In this paper we present a graphical high-level debugger for the VHDL simulation environment. The features of the tool are its user friendly interface based on Motif under X Window system, a capability to high-level debugging, a capability to support many methods to set breakpoints, selective enabling and disabling of breakpoints, single stepping and trace mode, a capability to display source code, simulation results, and graphical views such as schematic diagram and design hierarchical diagram synchronically, a capability to view the current values of signals or variables and change them, a capability of visualization of simulation results, and a capability to view the waveform of results while simulating.