Quartus® Prime Standard Edition User Guide: Design Compilation

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

2.5.4.6. Recreate PLLs for Lower-Level Partitions if Required

If you connect a PLL in your top-level design to partitions designed in separate Quartus® Prime projects by third-party IP designers, the IP partitions do not have information about the multiplication, phase shift, or compensation delays for the PLL in the top-level design. To accommodate the PLL timing, you can make appropriate timing assignments in the projects created by IP designers to ensure that clocks are not left unconstrained or constrained with an incorrect frequency. Alternatively, you can duplicate the top-level PLL (or other derived clock logic) in the design file for the project created by the IP designer to ensure that you have the correct PLL parameters and clock delays for a complete and accurate timing analysis.

If the project lead creates a copy of the top-level project framework that includes all the settings and constraints needed for the design, this framework should include PLLs and other interface logic if this information is important to optimize partitions.

If you use a separate Quartus® Prime project for an independent design block (such as when a designer or third-party IP provider does not have access to the entire design framework), include a copy of the top-level PLL in the lower-level partition as shown in figure.

In either case, the IP partition in the separate Quartus® Prime project should contain just the partition logic that will be exported to the top-level design, while the full project includes more information about the top-level design. When the partition is complete, you can export just the partition without exporting the auxiliary PLL components to the top-level design. When you export a partition, the Quartus® Prime software exports any hierarchy under the specified partition into the Quartus® Prime Exported Partition File (.qxp), but does not include logic defined outside the partition (the PLL in this example).

Figure 26. Recreating a Top-Level PLL in a Lower-Level Partition