Intel® Quartus® Prime Standard Edition User Guide: Debug Tools

ID 683552
Date 9/24/2018
Public
Document Table of Contents

5.3.2. Adding Signals to the Signal Tap File

Add the signals that you want to monitor to the .stp node list. You can also select signals to define triggers. You can assign the following two signal types:
  • Pre-synthesis—These signals exist after design elaboration, but before any synthesis optimizations are done. This set of signals must reflect your Register Transfer Level (RTL) signals.
  • Post-fitting—These signals exist after physical synthesis optimizations and place-and-route.
Note: If you are not using incremental compilation, add only pre-synthesis signals to the .stp. Using pre-synthesis helps when you want to add a new node after you change a design. After you perform Analysis and Elaboration, the source file changes appear in the Node Finder.

Intel® Quartus® Prime software does not limit the number of signals available for monitoring in the Signal Tap window waveform display. However, the number of channels available is directly proportional to the number of logic elements (LEs) or adaptive logic modules (ALMs) in the device. Therefore, there is a physical restriction on the number of channels that are available for monitoring. Signals shown in blue text are post-fit node names. Signals shown in black text are pre-synthesis node names.

After successful Analysis and Elaboration, invalid signals appear in red. Unless you are certain that these signals are valid, remove them from the .stp file for correct operation. The Signal Tap Status Indicator also indicates if an invalid node name exists in the .stp file.

You can tap signals if a routing resource (row or column interconnects) exists to route the connection to the Signal Tap instance. For example, you cannot tap signals that exist in the I/O element (IOE), because there are no direct routing resources from the signal in an IOE to a core logic element. For input pins, you can tap the signal that is driving a logic array block (LAB) from an IOE, or, for output pins, you can tap the signal from the LAB that is driving an IOE.