Quartus® Prime Standard Edition User Guide: Design Compilation

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

1.10.9.7. Top-Level Ports that Feed Multiple Lower-Level Pins in Design Partition Scripts

When a single top-level I/O port drives multiple pins on a lower-level module, it unnecessarily restricts the quality of the synthesis and placement at the lower-level. This occurs because in the lower-level design, the software must maintain the hierarchical boundary and cannot use any information about pins being logically equivalent at the top level. In addition, because I/O constraints are passed from the top-level pin to each of the children, it is possible to have more pins in the lower level than at the top level. These pins use top-level I/O constraints and placement options that might make them impossible to place at the lower level. The software avoids this situation whenever possible, but it is best to avoid this design practice to avoid these potential problems. Restructure your design so that the single I/O port feeds the design partition boundary and the single connection is split into multiple signals within the lower-level partition.