Intel® Quartus® Prime Standard Edition User Guide: Getting Started

ID 683475
Date 12/16/2019
Public
Document Table of Contents

3.12.2. Incremental Compilation with Design Partitions

In an incremental compilation flow, the system architect splits a large design into partitions. When hierarchical design partitions are well chosen and placed in the device floorplan, you can speed up your design compilation time while maintaining the quality of results.

Incremental compilation preserves the compilation results and performance of unchanged partitions in the design, greatly reducing design iteration time by focusing new compilations on changed design partitions only. Incremental compilation then merges new compilation results with the previous compilation results from unchanged design partitions. Additionally, you can target optimization techniques to specific design partitions, while leaving other partitions unchanged. You can also use empty partitions to indicate that parts of your design are incomplete or missing, while you compile the rest of your design.

Third-party IP designers can also export logic blocks to be integrated into the top-level design. Team members can work on partitions independently, which can simplify the design process and reduce compilation time. With exported partitions, the system architect must provide guidance to designers or IP providers to ensure that each partition uses the appropriate device resources. Because the designs may be developed independently, each designer has no information about the overall design or how their partition connects with other partitions. This lack of information can lead to problems during system integration. The top-level project information, including pin locations, physical constraints, and timing requirements, must be communicated to the designers of lower-level partitions before they start their design.

The system architect plans design partitions at the top level and allows third-party designs to access the top-level project framework. By designing in a copy of the top-level project (or by checking out the project files in a source control environment), the designers of the lower-level block have full information about the entire project, which helps to ensure optimal results.

When you plan your design code and hierarchy, ensure that each design entity is created in a separate file so that the entities remain independent when you make source code changes in the file. If you use a third-party synthesis tool, create separate Verilog Quartus Mapping or EDIF netlists for each design partition in your synthesis tool. You may have to create separate projects in your synthesis tool, so that the tool synthesizes each partition separately and generates separate output netlist files. The netlists are then considered the source files for incremental compilation.