Quartus® Prime Pro Edition User Guide: Platform Designer

ID 683609
Date 9/30/2024
Public
Document Table of Contents

1.16.3. Disabling or Enabling Parallel IP Generation

By default, the Quartus® Prime software and Platform Designer use multiple processors if available in your PC or workstation for faster IP generation. IP generation for large systems can be time consuming. The use of parallel IP generation can potentially reduce the total IP generation time for designs with large numbers of IP.

The qsys-generate command line utility similarly uses parallel IP generation by default when multiple processors are available. You can disable or enable the use of parallel IP generation for the current IP generation, for the current project, or for all projects. You can also specify the maximum number of processors to use for parallel IP generation.

Disabling or Enabling Parallel IP Generation for the Current IP Generation

  1. Open a system or IP component in Platform Designer, and click Generate HDL.
  2. In the Generation dialog box, turn on or off Use multiple processors for faster IP generation (when available). Platform Designer retains this setting for subsequent generations.
Figure 83. Disables or Enables Parallel IP Generation for the Current IP Generation

Disabling or Enabling Parallel IP Generation for a Single Project

  1. In the Quartus® Prime software, click Assignments > Settings > Compilation Process Settings.
  2. Under Parallel IP Generation, select Disable parallel generation of current Quartus project IPs to disable parallel IP generation for the current project. Select Enable parallel generation of current Quartus project IPs to enable parallel IP generation for the current project.
Figure 84. Enables or Disables Parallel IP Generation for a Single Project

Alternatively, you can disable or enable parallel IP generation for a project with the following line in the project .qsf file:

set_global_assignment -name PROJECT_IP_GEN_PARALLEL_ENABLED <off|on>

Disabling or Enabling Parallel IP Generation for all Projects

  1. In the Quartus® Prime software, click Tools > Options > IP Settings.
  2. Under Parallel IP Generation, enable or disable the Enable parallel generation of Quartus IPs in all projects option. When enabled, the Quartus® Prime software uses multiple processors (if available in your system) for faster IP generation.
Figure 85. Enables or Disables Parallel IP Generation for all Projects

Alternatively, you can disable or enable parallel IP generation for all projects by adding the following line to the quartus2.ini file:

ENABLE_PARALLEL_IP_GEN=<off|on> 

Specifying the Maximum Number of Processors

Parallel IP generation derives the maximum number of processors to use from the Maximum processors allowed Compiler setting. If you specify no value for this setting, the Quartus® Prime software selects an appropriate number based on the available processors, and the number of tasks the processors can execute in parallel.

  1. In the Quartus® Prime software, click Assignments > Settings > Compilation Process Settings.
  2. Under Parallel compilation, specify the Maximum processors allowed for processing designs.

Alternatively, you can set the number of processors with the following line in the project .qsf file:

set_global_assignment -name NUM_PARALLEL_PROCESSORS <number>

For the qsys-generate command line utility, you can use the --parallel[=<number>] argument, where <number> indicates the target number of processors.