Article ID: 000085052 Content Type: Troubleshooting Last Reviewed: 12/20/2012

Default PCIe HIP parameter differences for designs created before 12.1

Environment

    Quartus® II Subscription Edition
    PCI Express
BUILT IN - ARTICLE INTRO SECOND COMPONENT
Description

Some PCIe HIP parameters are set to non-optimal or incorrect values.  Three are releated to PCIe HIP behavior associated with sw programmed Function Level Reset(FLR), atomic operations and extended format header field.  The fourth paramter is related to the K-Symbol the HIP will use for deskew.  Deskewing using SKP characters will provide more tolerance to skew on PCIe lanes.

Resolution

The PCIe Stratix® V generated variant from the MegaWizard Plug-In Manager or Qsys system flow contains parameters which do not appear in the "Stratix V Hard IP for PCI Express" user interface.  These "hidden" parameters are set to optimum default values based on hardware characterization or transition from ES to production silicon.

The following values are recommended for use:
Values for MegaWizard Plug-In Manager:
// Retrieval info:      <generic name="deskew_comma_hwtcl" value="skp_eieos_deskw" />
// Retrieval info:      <generic name="atomic_malformed_hwtcl" value="true" />
// Retrieval info:      <generic name="extended_format_field_hwtcl" value="false" />
// Retrieval info:      <generic name="flr_capability_hwtcl" value="false" />

Values for Qsys:
  <parameter name="deskew_comma_hwtcl" value="skp_eieos_deskw" />
  <parameter name="atomic_malformed_hwtcl" value="false" />
  <parameter name="extended_format_field_hwtcl" value="true" />
  <parameter name="flr_capability_hwtcl" value="false" />


To update any of these values in a PCIe Stratix V variant generated with the MegaWizard Plug-In Manager Flow:
   1) Edit the variant(e.g. variant.v) with a text editor
   2) Locate the parameters to change in the Retrievel info section:
      For example, to set the value skp_eieos_deskw for parameter deskew_comma_hwtcl

         // Retrieval info:  <generic name="deskew_comma_hwtcl" value="skp_eieos_deskw" />
   3) Save the variant file(e.g. variant.v)
   4) Open a qshell comment prompt and refresh the variant using the following command:
      qmegawiz -silent variant

To update any of these values in the PCIe Stratix V component in a Qsys system:
   1) Edit the variant(e.g. variant.qsys) with a text editor
   2) Locate the parameters to change in the  <module kind="altera_pcie_sv_hip_ast" section:
      For example, to set the value skp_eieos_deskw for parameter
deskew_comma_hwtcl
           <parameter name="deskew_comma_hwtcl" value="skp_eieos_deskw" />
   3) Save the qsys file(e.g. variant.qsys)
   4) Open the qsys file with the qsys editor, then regenerate the files for synthesis and/or simulation

This will be fixed in a future release of the Quartus® II software.

Related Products

This article applies to 3 products

Stratix® V GT FPGA
Stratix® V GX FPGA
Stratix® V GS FPGA

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