Why do my Intel® Stratix® 10 E-Tile transceivers fail to exit power-on reset when using the Intel Quartus® Prime Pro software version 19.3 and later?

Due to a problem in the Intel Quartus Prime Pro software version 19.3 and later, the Intel Stratix 10 E-Tile transceivers may fail to exit power-on reset. When this happens, you may see some channels’ tx_ready, tx_pma_ready, rx_ready, rx_pma_ready signals fail to assert.

You can work around this problem by using the Intel Quartus Prime Pro software version 20.1 and later for device programming and bitstream conversion. Your original 19.3 or later bitstream (.sof)  can be used (recompiling is not required). This work around uses the Secure Device Manager (SDM) firmware from the Intel Quartus Prime Pro software version 20.1. 

This problem is fixed in the Intel Quartus Prime Pro software version 20.1 and later.