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

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

3.2.4. Updating I/O Designer with Intel® Quartus® Prime Pin Assignments

As you fine tune your design in the Intel® Quartus® Prime software, changes to design logic and pin assignments are likely. You must transfer any pin assignment changes made during design iterations for correct analysis in your circuit schematic and board layout tools. You transfer Intel® Quartus® Prime pin assignment changes to I/O Designer by updating the .fx and the .pin files in the Intel® Quartus® Prime software. When you update the .fx or the .pin, the I/O Designer database imports the changes automatically when configured according to the following instructions.
Figure 31. Updating Intel® Quartus® Prime Pin Assignments in I/O Designer


To update the .fx in your selected output directory and the .pin in your project directory after making changes to the design, perform the following tasks:

  1. In the I/O Designer software, click File > Properties.
  2. Under FPGA Xchange, specify the .fx file name and location.
  3. Under Place and Route, specify the .pin file name and location.
    After you have set up these file locations, the I/O Designer software monitors these files for changes. If the specified .fx or .pin is modified during design processing, three indicators flash red in the lower right corner of the I/O Designer GUI. You can click the indicators to open the I/O Designer Update Wizard dialog box. The I/O Designer Update Wizard dialog box lists the updated files in the database.

  4. Make logic or pin assignment changes in your design.
  5. Click Processing > Start > Start I/O Assignment Analysis to validate your latest assignment changes.
  6. To preserve your changes an update the corresponding the .fx and .pin files, click Processing > Start > Start EDA Netlist Writer or Processing > Start Compilation.
    Note: Your I/O Designer database should us a backup copy of the .fx generated by the Intel® Quartus® Prime software. Otherwise, updating the file in the Intel® Quartus® Prime software overwrites any changes made to the file by the I/O Designer software. If there are I/O Designer assignments in the .fx that you want to preserve, create a backup copy of the file before updating it in the Intel® Quartus® Prime software, and verify that your I/O Designer database points to the backup copy.