Quartus® Prime Standard Edition User Guide: Design Compilation

ID 683283
Date 10/22/2021
Public
Document Table of Contents

1.4.5.2.2. Design Modification Flow

The design modification flow describes the necessary steps to make modifications to the standard IP in your design. This flow ensures that the previously compiled safety IP that the project uses remains unchanged when you change or compile standard IP.

Use the design modification flow only after you qualify your design in the design creation flow.

Figure 5. Design Modification Flow

When the design modification flow is active for a safety IP partition, the Fitter runs in Strict Preservation mode for that partition. The Assembler performs run-time checks that compare the Partial Settings Mask information matches the .psm file generated in the design creation flow. If the Assembler detects a mismatch, a "Bad Mask!" or "ASM_STRICT_PRESERVATION_BITS_UTILITY::compare_masked_byte_array failed" internal error message is shown. If you see either error message while compiling your design, contact your Intel support representative for assistance.

When a change is made to any HDL source file that belongs to a safety IP, the default behavior of the Quartus® Prime software is to resynthesize and perform a clean place and route for that partition, which then activates the design creation flow for that partition. To change this default behavior and keep the design modification flow active, do the following:

  • Use the partition export/import flow.

or

  • Use the Design Partitions window to modify the design partition properties and turn on Ignore changes in source files and strictly use the specified netlist, if available.

The Fitter applies the same design flow to all partitions that belong to the same safety IP. If more than one safety IP is used in the design, the Fitter may evoke different flows for different safety IPs.

Note: If your safety IP is a sub-block in a Platform Designer system, every time you regenerate HDL for the Platform Designer system, the timestamp for the safety IP HDL changes. This results in resynthesis of the safety IP, unless the default behavior (described above) is changed.