Visible to Intel only — Ixiasoft
Visible to Intel only — Ixiasoft
3.3.1.6. Evaluate Other Reports and Adjust Settings Accordingly
Difficulty Packing Design
As the effort level of Difficulty Packing Design increases, timing closure gets harder. Going from medium to high can result in significant drop in performance or increase in compile time. Consider reducing logic to reduce packing difficulty.
Review Ignored Assignments
Review Non-Default Settings
Review Floorplan
For example, logic that interfaces with I/Os should be close to the I/Os, and logic that interfaces with an IP or memory should be close to the IP or memory.
The following notes describe how you can use the visualization in Floorplan with Color-Coded Entities to check timing paths:
- The green block is spread apart. Check to see if those paths are failing timing, and if so, what connects to that module that could affect placement.
- The blue and aqua blocks are spread out and mixed together. Check if connections between the two modules contribute to this.
- The pink logic at the bottom must interface with I/Os at the bottom edge. Check fan-in and fan-out of a highlighted module by using the buttons on the task bar.
Look for signals that go a long way across the chip and see if they are contributing to timing failures.
- Check global signal usage for signals that affect logic placement, and verify if the Fitter placed logic feeding a global buffer close to the buffer and away from related logic. Use settings like high fan-out on non-global resource to pull logic together.
- Check for routing congestion. The Fitter spreads out logic in highly congested areas, making the design harder to route.
Evaluate Placement and Routing
Adjust Placement Effort
Adjust the multiplier after reviewing and optimizing other settings and RTL. Try an increased value, up to 4, and reset to default if performance or compile time does not improve.
Adjust Fitter Effort
By default, the Fitter Optimization mode is set to Balanced (Normal flow), which reduces Fitter effort once timing requirements are met. You can optionally select another Optimization mode to target performance, power, or resource usage.
To increase Fitter effort further, you can also enable the Assignments > Settings > Compiler Settings > Advanced Settings (Fitter) > Fitter Effort option. The default Auto Fit setting reduces Fitter effort once timing requirements are met. Standard Fit (highest effort) setting uses maximum effort regardless of the design's requirements, leading to higher compilation time and more timing margin.