Quartus® Prime Standard Edition User Guide: Design Compilation

ID 683283
Date 10/22/2021
Public
Document Table of Contents

2.7.2. Creating an .sdc with Partition-Specific Constraints

The .sdc with partition-specific constraints should contain all constraints that affect only the partition. For example, a set_false_path or set_multicycle_path constraint for a path entirely within the partition should be in the partition-specific .sdc. These constraints are required for correct compilation of the partition, but do not need to be present in any other separate Quartus® Prime projects.

The partition-specific .sdc should be maintained by the partition designer; they must add any constraints required to properly compile and analyze their partition.

The partition-specific .sdc is used in the separate Quartus® Prime project and must be exported back to the project lead for the top-level design. The project lead must use the partition-specific constraints to properly constrain the placement, routing, or both, if the partition logic is fit at the top level, and to ensure that final timing sign-off is accurate. Use the following guidelines in the partition-specific .sdc to simplify these export and integration steps:

  • Create a hierarchy variable for the partition (such as module_A_hierarchy) and set it to an empty string because the partition is the top-level instance in the separate Quartus® Prime project. The project lead modifies this variable for the top-level hierarchy, reducing the effort of translating constraints on lower-level design hierarchies into constraints that apply in the top-level hierarchy. Use the following Tcl command first to check if the variable is already defined in the project, so that the top-level design does not use this empty hierarchy path: if {![info exists module_A_hierarchy]}.
  • Use the hierarchy variable in the partition-specific .sdc as a prefix for assignments in the project. For example, instead of naming a particular instance of a register reg:inst, use ${module_A_hierarchy}reg:inst. Also, use the hierarchy variable as a prefix to any wildcard characters (such as ” * ”).
  • Pay attention to the location of the assignments to I/O ports of the partition. In most cases, these assignments should be specified in the .sdc with project-wide constraints, because the partition interface depends on the top-level design. If you want to set I/O constraints within the partition, the team must ensure that the I/O port names are identical in all projects so that the assignments can be integrated successfully without changes.
  • Use caution with the derive_clocks and derive_pll_clocks commands. In most cases, the .sdc with project-wide constraints should call these commands. Because these commands impact the entire design, integrating them unexpectedly into the top-level design might cause problems.

If the design team follows these recommendations, the project lead should be able to include the .sdc with the partition-specific constraints provided by the partition designer directly in the top-level design.