Genesys 2 Kintex-7 FPGA Board Voucher Period and Allowed Features of Vivado

[mulzem]

Firstly Hi,

I am planning to buy a new Genesys 2 Kintex-7 FPGA Board, however I have some question. as I understand, I can NOT use Vivado Design Suite - HLx Editions - 2020.2, AND I must also buy any ML Edition of Vivado. 

How long can I use Genesys 2 Kintex-7 FPGA Board Voucher. I wonder if the Voucher is permanent and will I be able to use the Voucher forever with all features?

Also which features this the Voucher and the Vivado ML have? For example; can I use IP generators (Bram, MIG, clock generators), all flow, ILA core, and also device programming tools.

Additinialy, If I change my computer or Windows, will I be able to use Genesys 2 Kintex-7 FPGA Board Voucher again.

Thank you for all your support.

[JColvin]

Hi @mulzem,

The vouchers (provided to Digilent by Xilinx, so they ultimately have the end say on how the vouchers work) have been explained to me to work as follows:

• For Digilent devices that use an FPGA not included with the free version of Vivado (such as the Genesys 2 with its Kintex-325 FPGA), you will receive a node-locked, device-locked voucher to be able to synthesize and generate bitstreams for designs on a single machine. You can redeem the voucher on the Xilinx Product Licensing site, https://www.xilinx.com/getlicense.html.
• Rather than locked to a particular version of the software (Vivado Design Suite vs Vivado ML vs HLx vs whatever branding is being used), the voucher is instead time limited for 1 year.
• During that one year, you will be able to update your Vivado/Vitis install to whatever newest version is available.
• After the one year period has completed, you will no longer be able to update to newer versions, but you will be able to freely continue to use the existing version that you do have.
• As for what IPs are available, I believe that all of the regular features (synthesis, ILA, base IPs like Zynq or Microblaze, Clock wizards, etc) are available in both the free Vivado ML Standard Edition and the paid (which the voucher would take of) Vivado ML Enterprise Edition, as per here: https://www.xilinx.com/products/design-tools/vivado/vivado-ml-buy.html. It is specifically the Kintex 325 FPGA that is locked behind the Enterprise/voucher.
  • There may be some IPs that are not included with the voucher nor the free/paid version of Vivado. For the Genesys 2 specifically, this would be the Gigabit Ethernet PHY (TEMAC IP) and the DisplayPort IP licenses; https://digilent.com/reference/programmable-logic/genesys-2/reference-manual#software_support.
  • If you wish to use these IPs beyond their own separate evaluation periods, you would need to pay Xilinx for them, same as Digilent would have to. From my understanding, all other "standard" IPs are freely included with Vivado. If you want to know the specific status of an IP, say Clocking Wizard, you can search for it on the Xilinx website and see if it is bundled with Vivado (as opposed to having an option to evaluate the IP). 
• I believe you should be able to transfer the license to a different machine. This is covered in the last question in Section 8 in the Xilinx/AMD FAQ on licensing, https://www.xilinx.com/products/design-tools/faq.html, "What happens when a license machine "dies" or is replaced".

Again, Xilinx will have the end say on how the vouchers will specifically work (though I imagine the licensing site will also explain what you are getting before it uses the voucher), so any specific functionality questions I would recommend you ask Xilinx about. I do not have a license nor a Genesys 2, so unfortunately I do not have any specific experience to share.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,
JColvin

[asmi]

On 4/9/2024 at 7:23 PM, JColvin said:

I believe you should be able to transfer the license to a different machine. This is covered in the last question in Section 8 in the Xilinx/AMD FAQ on licensing, https://www.xilinx.com/products/design-tools/faq.html, "What happens when a license machine "dies" or is replaced".

You can simply reassign a MAC address on your new system to be the same as what you had in the old one, and license will work just fine. I've done it for my license which came with my Genesys 2 board when the time came to replace my PC.