XILINX PlanAhead 8.1 Design Analysis Tool Announcement Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) 1. What is PlanAhead? The PlanAhead™ Design Analysis tool is logic design and analysis software from Xilinx that is an optional add-on to the Integrated Software Environment™ (ISE) design tool suite. The PlanAhead tool provides an environment to analyze and floorplan a design targeting any of Xilinx industry leading FPGAs. It offers a powerful enhancement to the ISE development environment, improving and automating the designer’s ability to analyze and identify performance bottlenecks within their design. With an intuitive environment that provides schematic, floorplan or device views of their design, users can more easily define and refine the hierarchy of their design, allowing for better performance and more efficient utilization of device resources. The PlanAhead tool is employed between synthesis and place-and-route, enabling designers to rapidly analyze, modify and achieve superior performance on each of the individual design blocks. Blocks can then be connected together in a final assembly phase. The tool's hierarchical design methodology further extends the incremental design capabilities available in Xilinx's ISE software.