Intel® Quartus® Prime Standard Edition User Guide: PCB Design Tools

ID 683619
Date 9/24/2018
Public
Document Table of Contents

3. Mentor Graphics* PCB Design Tools Support

You can integrate the Mentor Graphics* ® I/O Designer or DxDesigner PCB design tools into the Intel® Quartus® Prime design flow. This combination provides a complete FPGA-to-board design workflow.

With today’s large, high-pin-count and high-speed FPGA devices, good and correct PCB design practices are essential to ensure correct system operation. The PCB design takes place concurrently with the design and programming of the FPGA. The FPGA or ASIC designer initially creates signal and pin assignments, and the board designer must correctly transfer these assignments to the symbols in their system circuit schematics and board layout. As the board design progresses, Intel recommends reassigning pins to optimize the PCB layout. Ensure that you inform the FPGA designer of the pin reassignments so that the new assignments are included in an updated placement and routing of the design.

The Mentor Graphics* I/O Designer software allows you to take advantage of the full FPGA symbol design, creation, editing, and back-annotation flow supported by the Mentor Graphics* tools.

This chapter covers the following topics:

  • Mentor Graphics* and Intel software integration flow
  • Generating supporting files
  • Adding Intel® Quartus® Prime I/O assignments to I/O Designer
  • Updating assignment changes between the I/O Designer the Intel® Quartus® Prime software
  • Generating I/O Designer symbols
  • Creating DxDesigner symbols from the Intel® Quartus® Prime output files

This chapter is intended for board design and layout engineers who want to start the FPGA board integration while the FPGA is still in the design phase. Alternatively, the board designer can plan the FPGA pin-out and routing requirements in the Mentor Graphics* tools and pass the information back to the Intel® Quartus® Prime software for placement and routing. Part librarians can also benefit from this chapter by learning how to use output from the Intel® Quartus® Prime software to create new library parts and symbols.

The procedures in this chapter require the following software:

  • The Intel® Quartus® Prime software version 5.1 or later
  • DxDesigner software version 2004 or later
  • Mentor Graphics* I/O Designer software (optional)
Note: To obtain and license the Mentor Graphics* tools and for product information, support, and training, refer to the Mentor Graphics* website.