Intel® Hyperflex™ Architecture High-Performance Design Handbook

ID 683353
Date 12/08/2023
Public
Document Table of Contents

5.2.11. Critical Chain Bits and Buses

The critical chain of a design commonly includes registers that are single bits in a wider bus or register bank. When you analyze such a critical chain, focus on the bus as a whole, instead of analyzing the structure related to the single bit. For example, a critical chain that refers to bit 10 in a 512 bit bus probably corresponds to similar structures for all the bits in the bus. A technique that can help with this approach is to mentally replace each bit index, such as [10], with [*].

If the critical chain includes a register in a bus where different slices go through different logic, then focus your analysis on the appropriate slice based on which register is reported in the critical chain.