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

ID 683819
Date 10/13/2021
Public

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2.7.1. Changing the Post-Fit Signal Tap Target Nodes

After performing full compilation of your design and Signal Tap instance, you can subsequently make iterative changes to the post-fit Signal Tap nodes that you want to target, without rerunning full compilation to implement the changes.

The Signal Tap Node list displays whether a target node is Pre-Syn (pre-synthesis) or Post-Fit in the filterable Tap column.

To modify the post-fit Signal Tap nodes:

  1. Optionally, mark signals for debug, as Preserving Signals for Monitoring and Debugging describes.
    Note: You cannot change all pre-synthesis nodes to post-fit nodes, unless you are changing the nodes before running full compilation. Once you preserve any signal with preserve_for_debug, you can change those preserved pre-synthesis nodes to post-fit nodes.
  2. In the Signal Configuration pane, modify any of the following properties for nodes with a Tap of Post-Fit:
    Figure 74. Changing the Post-Fit Signal Tap Nodes
    • In the Name column, modify or add a new post-fit Signal Tap node target, regardless of the trigger mode.
    • In the Trigger Conditions column, modify the trigger mode. You can add the post-fit Signal Tap node inputs to a Basic AND or Basic OR trigger.
    • In Nodes Allocated, you can specify the Manual option to increase or decrease the number of post-fit node targets. You can use manual allocation to help you avoid any major logic change that may require a full recompilation. The data input width affects memory use. The trigger input and storage input width affects the complexity of the condition logic, which can increase the device resource use and the complexity of timing closure.
    • Right-click any pre-synthesis Signal Tap node to convert to a post-fit Signal Tap node. The conversion is only successful if Signal Tap can resolve pre-synthesis to post-fit name mapping. Otherwise, the node appears in red and connected to ground. When conversion is successful the post-fit taps names appear in blue text.
    Figure 75. Post-fit Taps Names Appear in Blue Text
  3. After your post-fit node changes are complete, click Processing > Start Recompile to implement only the Signal Tap node changes. A dialog box appears that lists the changes you are implementing, and whether recompilation supports the change.
    Figure 76. Recompilation Changes List
  4. For any change with Status of Unsupported, you must either revert the change to Previous value, or perform a full compilation to implement the change.
  5. Click the Recompile button, as Figure 76 shows. Recompilation uses the Engineering Change Order (ECO) compilation flow to append your Signal Tap node changes to the existing finalized snapshot, without changing placement and routing outside the Signal Tap partition.
    Note: The recompilation only applies to the project database if the recompilation is successful. Otherwise, the last successful compilation results remain unchanged.
  6. View the changes in the following Compilation Reports following recompilation:
    Figure 77. Connections to In-System Debugging ReportLists each tap target and whether the connection successfully routes (is Connected after recompilation)
    Figure 78. ECO Detected Changes ReportLists each tap change that you implement with recompilation.
    Figure 79. ECO Resource Usage ChangeShows the device resource area change that recompilation implements. Use this report to approximate whether additional changes to the Signal Tap configuration are likely to succeed in combination with the overall design utilization reports.