Intel® Quartus® Prime Standard Edition User Guide: Design Optimization

ID 683230
Date 11/12/2018
Public
Document Table of Contents

3.5.6. Logic Lock (Standard) Assignments

Using Logic Lock (Standard) assignments to improve timing performance is only recommended for older devices, such as the MAX® II family. For other device families, especially for larger devices such as Arria® and Stratix® series devices, do not use Logic Lock (Standard) assignments to improve timing performance. For these devices, use the feature for performance preservation and to floorplan your design.

Logic Lock (Standard) assignments do not always improve the performance of the design. In many cases, you cannot improve upon results from the Fitter by making location assignments. If there are existing Logic Lock (Standard) assignments in your design, remove the assignments if your design methodology permits it. Recompile the design, and then check if the assignments are making the performance worse.

When making Logic Lock (Standard) assignments, it is important to consider how much flexibility to give the Fitter. Logic Lock (Standard) assignments provide more flexibility than hard location assignments. Assignments that are more flexible require higher Fitter effort, but reduce the chance of design overconstraint.

The following types of Logic Lock (Standard) assignments are available, listed in the order of decreasing flexibility:

  • Auto size, floating location regions
  • Fixed size, floating location regions
  • Fixed size, locked location regions

If you are unsure about the best size or location of a Logic Lock (Standard) region, the Auto/Floating options are useful for your first pass. After you determine where a Logic Lock (Standard) region must go, modify the Fixed/Locked regions, as Auto/Floating Logic Lock (Standard) regions can hurt your overall performance. To determine what to put into a Logic Lock (Standard) region, refer to the timing analysis results and analyze the critical paths in the Chip Planner. The register-to-register timing paths in the Timing Analyzer section of the Compilation Report help you recognize patterns.