Exploration Page (Design Space Explorer II)

Exploration Name

Name that you give to the DSE II session.

Compilation Type

Type of compilation to perform. You can choose between Full Compilation, Fitting and timing analysis and Fitting, timing analysis, and assembler.

Exploration Points

Option Description
Explore
Single compilation Allows you to set up a single compilation in a remote location and monitor from the local computer.
Design Exploration Allows you to generate many compilations in remote machines, each of them with different parameters or settings.
Skip base exploration points If you turn this option on, the DSE II generates compilation only for non-default settings.
Exploration Mode
Exploration flow to use. The following options are available:
Seed Sweep Only

Directs DSE II to vary only the seed setting in the Fitter, using the seed values you specified in Seeds.

The Fitter uses the seed during the initial placement configuration and when optimizing the design to meet the timing requirements, including fMAX. Because each different seed value will result in a somewhat different fit, you can try different seeds to attempt to obtain superior fitting results.
Note: The seeds that lead to the best fits for a design may change if the design changes. Also, changing the seed not always results in a better fit; therefore, you should specify a seed only if the Fitter is not meeting timing requirements by a small amount
.
All Optimization Modes Optimizes synthesis for balanced implementation that respects timing constraints. When you specify this option, te number of runs is 5x the number of seeds (+ optional base compile).
Performance (High Effort) Optimize synthesis for speed performance. High effort increases synthesis runtime.
Performance (Aggressive) Optimize synthesis for speed performance. Aggressive effort increases synthesis runtime and device resource use.
Area (Aggressive) Reduce the device area required to implement the design.
Power (High Effort) Optimize synthesis for low power. High effort increases synthesis runtime.
Power (Aggressive) Optimize synthesis for low power. Aggressive effort increases synthesis time and reduces speed performance.
Seeds
Specifies the random seeds that the compilation must use. Choose between:
Create Number of seeds to sweep as part of the exploration space. The DSE II uses consecutive seeds
Specify List of seeds that the DSE II must use

Design File Setup

Option Description
Create design archive from Intel® Quartus® Prime project Each compilation generates a qar file.
Discover and include source files missing from project settings Activate auto discover file feature. If enabled, the software runs analysis and elaboration if it has not been run to discover source files.

If the QSF file already contains all design files, you can turn off this option to reduce runtime and memory consumption.

Use existing design archive (.qar) Each compilation imports the qar file from the local machine.

Limits

Select one of the following options:

Option Description
Stop after any exploration meets timing Exploration stops when a compilation meets the timing goals.
Limit compilation for each exploration point to Defines a time limit for each compilation.

Results

Option Description
Select results to save
Specify what result files to keep after an exploration point completes. The alternatives are:
all
qar
best_qar
sof
sof_qar
reports_only

DSE Server Settings

For LSF farms, you can use a remote machine to generate compilations and gather results. With this configuration, the local machine is free to disconnect from the network during the exploration process, and can connect later to check the results.

To retrieve the exploration results we need the IP remote machine to contact. We achieve this by having remote machine register with the local machine.

Option Description
Host IP of the local machine
Port Port that the local machine is using
Registration Host IP of the machine that generates the compilations
Registration Port Port that the registration host is using

Advanced

Option Description
Specify exploration points without compiling Allows you to compile your design at a later point in time.
Maximum number of parallel compilations Number of CPUs each compiler must use.
Maximum number of CPUs Maximum CPUs that the DSE can use
Quality of Fit formula Name of the Python script that calculates a custom Quality of Fit value. This path is relative to the project directory