Quartus® Prime Pro Edition User Guide: Design Optimization

ID 683641
Date 4/01/2024
Public

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2.2. Quartus® Prime Design Flow with the Netlist Viewers

When you first open one of the Netlist Viewers after compiling the design, a preprocessor stage runs automatically before the Netlist Viewer opens.

Click the link in the preprocessor process box to go to the Settings > Compilation Process Settings page where you can turn on the Run Netlist Viewers preprocessing during compilation option. If you turn this option on, the preprocessing becomes part of the full project compilation flow and the Netlist Viewer opens immediately without displaying the preprocessing dialog box.

Figure 7.  Quartus® Prime Design Flow Including the RTL Viewer and Technology Map Viewer

This figure shows how Netlist Viewers fit into the basic Quartus® Prime design flow.

Before the Netlist Viewer can run the preprocessor stage, you must compile your design:

  • To open the RTL Viewer first perform Analysis and Elaboration.
  • To open the Technology Map Viewer (Post-Fitting) or the Technology Map Viewer (Post‑Mapping), first perform Analysis and Synthesis.
The Netlist Viewers display the results of the last successful compilation.
  • Therefore, if you make a design change that causes an error during Analysis and Elaboration, you cannot view the netlist for the new design files, but you can still see the results from the last successfully compiled version of the design files.
  • If you receive an error during compilation and you have not yet successfully run the appropriate compilation stage for your project, the Netlist Viewer cannot be displayed; in this case, the Quartus® Prime software issues an error message when you try to open the Netlist Viewer.
Note: If the Netlist Viewer is open when you start a new compilation, the Netlist Viewer closes automatically. You must open the Netlist Viewer again to view the new design netlist after compilation completes successfully.