https://www.nutaq.

com/matlab-hdl-coder-xilinx-system-generator - connection between Xilinx and

Matlab – matlab HDL generator, - Xilinx System Generator

Conclusions

MATLAB HDL Coder and Xilinx System Generator both enable rapid prototyping of the FPGA design by
utilizing MATLAB and Simulink environment. Both of these packages come with their associated pros
and cons. The HDL Coder provides a complete integrated environment for the design flow. It supports a
larger number of MATLAB Functions and Simulink Blocks. It also automatically converts the floating
point numbers to fixed-point. Furthermore, HDL coder provides the means to generating target-
independent Verilog and VHDL codes, which can then be synthesized for various FPGA platforms. On the
downside, the HDL Coder alone is insufficient for synthesizing, simulating and verifying the HDL codes.
Additional MATLAB toolboxes and third-party software are required to achieve these goals. The Xilinx
System Generator comes as part of Xilinx design suits and is specifically tailored for Xilinx products. It
also supports a sufficiently large number of DSP blocks, including those that support mcode, HDL
codes, and floating-point DSP. Other than MATLAB itself, no third party software is needed, neither for
generating HDL codes from Simulink blocks, nor for synthesizing and verifying the generated codes. On
the downside, it is only limited to Xilinx products and requires manual conversion of Simulink floating-
point numbers to fixed-point, which can be a time consuming and error-prone process.