Intel® Quartus® Prime Standard Edition User Guide: Partial Reconfiguration

ID 683499
Date 9/24/2018
Public
Document Table of Contents

1.3. Partial Reconfiguration Modes

When you implement a design on an Altera FPGA device, your design implementation is controlled by bits stored in CRAM inside the FPGA.

You can use partial reconfiguration in the SCRUB mode or the AND/OR mode. The mode you select affects your PR flow in ways detailed later in this chapter.

The CRAM bits control individual LABs, MLABs, M20K memory blocks, DSP blocks, and routing multiplexers in a design. The CRAM bits are organized into a frame structure representing vertical areas that correspond to specific locations on the FPGA. If you change a design and reconfigure the FPGA in a non-PR flow, the process reloads all the CRAM bits to a new functionality.

Configuration bitstreams used in a non-PR flow are different than those used in a PR flow. In addition to standard data and CRC check bits, configuration bitstreams for partial reconfiguration also include instructions that direct the PR control block to process the data for partial reconfiguration.

The configuration bitstream written into the CRAM is organized into configuration frames. If a LAB column passes through multiple PR regions, those regions share some programming frames.