Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition User Guide: Partial Reconfiguration

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ID 683834
Date 1/11/2022
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Document Table of Contents
Document Table of Contents x
1. Answers to Top FAQs 2. Creating a Partial Reconfiguration Design 3. Partial Reconfiguration Solutions IP User Guide A. Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition User Guides
2. Creating a Partial Reconfiguration Design x
2.1. What's New In This Version 2.2. Partial Reconfiguration Terminology 2.3. Partial Reconfiguration Process Sequence 2.4. Internal Host Partial Reconfiguration 2.5. External Host Partial Reconfiguration 2.6. Partial Reconfiguration Design Flow 2.7. Partial Reconfiguration Design Considerations 2.8. Hierarchical Partial Reconfiguration 2.9. Partial Reconfiguration Design Timing Analysis 2.10. Partial Reconfiguration Design Simulation 2.11. Partial Reconfiguration Design Debugging 2.12. Partial Reconfiguration Security ( Intel® Stratix® 10 Designs) 2.13. PR Bitstream Compression and Encryption ( Intel® Arria® 10 and Intel® Cyclone® 10 GX Designs) 2.14. Avoiding PR Programming Errors 2.15. Exporting a Version-Compatible Compilation Database for PR Designs 2.16. Creating a Partial Reconfiguration Design Revision History
2.6. Partial Reconfiguration Design Flow x
2.6.1. Step 1: Identify Partial Reconfiguration Resources 2.6.2. Step 2: Create Design Partitions 2.6.3. Step 3: Floorplan the Design 2.6.4. Step 4: Add the Partial Reconfiguration Controller Intel® FPGA IP 2.6.5. Step 5: Define Personas 2.6.6. Step 6: Create Revisions for Personas 2.6.7. Step 7: Compile the Base Revision and Export the Static Region 2.6.8. Step 8: Setup PR Implementation Revisions 2.6.9. Step 9: Program the FPGA Device
2.6.3. Step 3: Floorplan the Design x
2.6.3.1. Applying Floorplan Constraints Incrementally
2.6.4. Step 4: Add the Partial Reconfiguration Controller Intel® FPGA IP x
2.6.4.1. Adding the Partial Reconfiguration Controller Intel FPGA IP 2.6.4.2. Adding the Partial Reconfiguration Controller Intel® Arria® 10/Cyclone 10 FPGA IP
2.6.9. Step 9: Program the FPGA Device x
2.6.9.1. Generating PR Bitstream Files 2.6.9.2. Generating PR Bitstream Files 2.6.9.3. Partial Reconfiguration Bitstream Compatibility Checking 2.6.9.4. Raw Binary Programming File Byte Sequence Transmission Examples 2.6.9.5. Generating a Merged .pmsf File from Multiple .pmsf Files ( Intel® Arria® 10 and Intel® Cyclone® 10 GX Designs)
2.7. Partial Reconfiguration Design Considerations x
2.7.1. Partial Reconfiguration Design Guidelines 2.7.2. PR Design Timing Closure Best Practices 2.7.3. PR File Management 2.7.4. Evaluating PR Region Initial Conditions 2.7.5. Creating Wrapper Logic for PR Regions 2.7.6. Creating Freeze Logic for PR Regions 2.7.7. Resetting the PR Region Registers 2.7.8. Promoting Global Signals in a PR Region 2.7.9. Planning Clocks and other Global Routing 2.7.10. Implementing Clock Enable for On-Chip Memories with Initialized Contents
2.7.3. PR File Management x
2.7.3.1. Method 1 (Preferred): Specify Unique Entity and File Names for Each Persona 2.7.3.2. Method 2: Set QSF Assignment for a Parameterized PR Persona
2.7.8. Promoting Global Signals in a PR Region x
2.7.8.1. Viewing Row Clock Region Boundaries
2.7.10. Implementing Clock Enable for On-Chip Memories with Initialized Contents x
2.7.10.1. Clock Gating
2.8. Hierarchical Partial Reconfiguration x
2.8.1. Using Parent QDB Files from Different Compiles
2.9. Partial Reconfiguration Design Timing Analysis x
2.9.1. Running Timing Analysis on Aggregate Revisions
2.10. Partial Reconfiguration Design Simulation x
2.10.1. Partial Reconfiguration Simulation Flow 2.10.2. Simulating PR Persona Replacement
2.10.2. Simulating PR Persona Replacement x
2.10.2.1. altera_pr_persona_if Module 2.10.2.2. altera_pr_wrapper_mux_out Module 2.10.2.3. altera_pr_wrapper_mux_in Module
2.11. Partial Reconfiguration Design Debugging x
2.11.1. Debugging PR Designs with the Signal Tap Logic Analyzer 2.11.2. Instantiating the Intel Configuration Reset Release Endpoint to Debug Logic IP
2.12. Partial Reconfiguration Security ( Intel® Stratix® 10 Designs) x
2.12.1. PR Bitstream Security Validation ( Intel® Stratix® 10 Designs) 2.12.2. PR Bitstream Authentication ( Intel® Stratix® 10 Designs) 2.12.3. PR Bitstream Encryption ( Intel® Stratix® 10 Designs)
2.13. PR Bitstream Compression and Encryption ( Intel® Arria® 10 and Intel® Cyclone® 10 GX Designs) x
2.13.1. Generating an Encrypted PR Bitstream ( Intel® Arria® 10 or Intel® Cyclone® 10 GX Designs) 2.13.2. Clock-to-Data Ratio for Bitstream Encryption and Compression ( Intel® Arria® 10 or Intel® Cyclone® 10 GX Designs) 2.13.3. Data Compression Comparison
2.15. Exporting a Version-Compatible Compilation Database for PR Designs x
2.15.1. Version-Compatible Database Flow for PR Designs 2.15.2. Generating a Version-Compatible Compilation Database for PR Designs
3. Partial Reconfiguration Solutions IP User Guide x
3.1. Internal and External PR Host Configurations 3.2. Partial Reconfiguration Controller Intel FPGA IP 3.3. Partial Reconfiguration Controller Intel Arria® 10/Cyclone® 10 FPGA IP 3.4. Partial Reconfiguration External Configuration Controller Intel FPGA IP 3.5. Partial Reconfiguration Region Controller Intel® FPGA IP 3.6. Avalon® Memory-Mapped Partial Reconfiguration Freeze Bridge IP 3.7. Avalon® Streaming Partial Reconfiguration Freeze Bridge IP 3.8. Generating and Simulating Intel® FPGA IP 3.9. Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition User Guide: Partial Reconfiguration Archive 3.10. Partial Reconfiguration Solutions IP User Guide Revision History
3.2. Partial Reconfiguration Controller Intel FPGA IP x
3.2.1. Memory Map 3.2.2. Parameters 3.2.3. Ports 3.2.4. Timing Specifications 3.2.5. PR Error Recovery 3.2.6. Secure Device Manager Firmware Error Reporting
3.2.5. PR Error Recovery x
3.2.5.1. PR Error Recovery Timing Specifications
3.2.6. Secure Device Manager Firmware Error Reporting x
3.2.6.1. SDM Firmware Error Reporting Timing Specification
3.3. Partial Reconfiguration Controller Intel Arria® 10/Cyclone® 10 FPGA IP x
3.3.1. Agent Interface 3.3.2. Reconfiguration Sequence 3.3.3. Interrupt Interface 3.3.4. Parameters 3.3.5. Ports 3.3.6. Timing Specifications 3.3.7. PR Control Block and CRC Block Verilog HDL Manual Instantiation 3.3.8. PR Control Block and CRC Block VHDL Manual Instantiation 3.3.9. PR Control Block Signals 3.3.10. Configuring an External Host for Intel® Arria® 10 or Intel® Cyclone® 10 GX Designs
3.3.4. Parameters x
3.3.4.1. Error Detection CRC Requirements
3.3.8. PR Control Block and CRC Block VHDL Manual Instantiation x
3.3.8.1. PR Control Block and CRC Block VHDL Component Declaration
3.3.9. PR Control Block Signals x
3.3.9.1. PR Control Block Signal Timing Diagrams
3.4. Partial Reconfiguration External Configuration Controller Intel FPGA IP x
3.4.1. Parameters 3.4.2. Ports 3.4.3. Partial Reconfiguration External Controller Intel FPGA IP Timing Specifications 3.4.4. Configuring an External Host for Intel® Stratix® 10 or Intel® Agilex™ Designs
3.5. Partial Reconfiguration Region Controller Intel® FPGA IP x
3.5.1. Registers 3.5.2. Parameters 3.5.3. Ports
3.6. Avalon® Memory-Mapped Partial Reconfiguration Freeze Bridge IP x
3.6.1. Parameters 3.6.2. Interface Ports
3.7. Avalon® Streaming Partial Reconfiguration Freeze Bridge IP x
3.7.1. Parameters 3.7.2. Ports
3.8. Generating and Simulating Intel® FPGA IP x
3.8.1. Specifying the IP Core Parameters and Options ( Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition) 3.8.2. Running the Freeze Bridge Update script 3.8.3. IP Core Generation Output ( Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition) 3.8.4. Intel® Arria® 10 and Intel® Cyclone® 10 GX PR Control Block Simulation Model 3.8.5. Generating the PR Persona Simulation Model 3.8.6. Secure Device Manager Partial Reconfiguration Simulation Model
3.8.6. Secure Device Manager Partial Reconfiguration Simulation Model x
3.8.6.1. Monitoring the SDM 3.8.6.2. Simulating Unknown Outputs and Persona Activation 3.8.6.3. Simulation RBF Required Word Sequence
1. Answers to Top FAQs
2. Creating a Partial Reconfiguration Design
3. Partial Reconfiguration Solutions IP User Guide
A. Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition User Guides

2.7.2. PR Design Timing Closure Best Practices

The use of partition boundary ports for PR regions can make timing closure more challenging because the Compiler cannot optimize the logic across a partition boundary. The use of Logic Lock regions can also limit placement and routing flexibility. You must register all PR region boundary ports. Even when taking these steps, you may still find timing criticalities.

Each persona of a PR region can have different bits or input and output buses in use. Therefore, it is important to preserve the registers that do not have fan-out in a given persona, or that are driven by constants. You must ensure that the Compiler does not optimize away such registers during the compilation of a persona.

If the base compile does not use some bits of a bus, and the Compiler removes the corresponding registers for those bits, the logic may be untimed, resulting in unfavorable placement and routing. If you use those unregistered paths in other persona logic, you can have difficulty meeting timing on those paths. Preserving the unused port registers in the base compile ensures that the paths are timed in the base compile, and eases timing closure during persona compiles.

Follow these guidelines for effective register preservation in PR designs:

  • Only the registers within PR regions require preservation.
  • Only the PR base compilation requires register preservation.
  • In a persona compile, the Compiler can safely remove fan-out free and constant-driven registers.
  • For hierarchical PR compilations, only the base compile of the hierarchy requires register preservation.
  • Preserve fan-out free nodes for input registers.
  • Preserve constant-driven nodes for output registers.
  • Only assign the attributes for the PR base compile. Remove the attributes for the persona compile (for example, via parameter or generic).
  • You can set top-level parameters in the .qsf, which in turn pass down to lower hierarchies.

Use any of the following synthesis attributes to preserve registers:

  • To preserve constant-driven or fan-out free registers, use the noprune attribute. noprune also disables all physical optimizations:
    Verilog: (* noprune *) reg reg1;
VHDL: signal reg1: std_logic; 
      attribute noprune: boolean; 
      attribute noprune of reg1: signal is true;
  • To preserve fan-out free registers while allowing retiming on bits that have fan-outs, assign PRESERVE_FANOUT_FREE_NODE ON as altera_attribute:
    Verilog: (* altera_attribute = "-name PRESERVE_FANOUT_FREE_NODE ON" *) \
     reg reg1;
VHDL: signal reg1: stdlogic; 
      attribute altera_attribute : string; 
      attribute altera_attribute of reg1: signal is "-name \
     PRESERVE_FANOUT_FREE_NODE ON";
  • Alternatively, use the dummy attribute with the PRESERVE_FANOUT_FREE_NODE ON assignment in the .qsf:
    Verilog: (* dummy *) reg reg1;
VHDL: signal reg1: std_logic; 
      attribute dummy: boolean; 
      attribute dummy of reg1: signal is true;

    .qsf Assignment: 

    set_instance_assignment -name PRESERVE_FANOUT_FREE_NODE ON \
    -to <hierarchical path to reg1>
  • To preserve constant-driven registers while allowing retiming on bits that have drivers, use the preserve_syn_only attribute:
    Verilog: (* preserve_syn_only *) reg reg1;
VHDL: signal reg1: std_logic; 
      attribute preserve_syn_only : boolean; 
      attribute preserve_syn_only of reg1: signal is true;

The following example shows how to assign attributes in PR base compile using a parameter in System Verilog and in VHDL. The example contains a parameter called base_compile, which is set to true for the PR base compile only. 

System Verilog:
localparam ON_OFF_STRING = base_compile ? "ON": "OFF";
(* altera_attribute = {"-name PRESERVE_FANOUT_FREE_NODE ", ON_OFF_STRING} *)
logic [WIDTH-1:0] pr_input_register;
(* altera_attribute = {"-name PRESERVE_REGISTER_SYN_ONLY ", ON_OFF_STRING} *)
logic [WIDTH-1:0] pr_output_regsiter;

VHDL:
attribute altera_attribute : string;
type attributeStr_type is array(boolean) of string(1 to 35);
constant attributeStr : attributeStr_type := (true => "-name PRESERVE_FANOUT_FREE_NODE ON \
     ", false => "-name PRESERVE_FANOUT_FREE_NODE OFF");
attribute altera_attribute of  <PR input registers> : signal is attributeStr(base_compile);
attribute preserve_syn_only : boolean;
attribute preserve_syn_only of  <PR output registers> : signal is base_compile;
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