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

ID 683834
Date 7/31/2023
Public
Document Table of Contents

2. Creating a Partial Reconfiguration Design

Partial reconfiguration (PR) allows you to reconfigure a portion of the FPGA dynamically, while the remaining FPGA design continues to function. You can define multiple personas for a particular region in your design, without impacting operation in areas outside this region. This methodology is effective in systems with multiple functions that time-share the same FPGA device resources. PR enables the implementation of more complex FPGA systems.

The Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition software supports the PR feature for the Intel® Stratix® 10, Intel Agilex® 7, Intel® Arria® 10, and Intel® Cyclone® 10 GX device families.

Figure 1. Partial Reconfiguration Design
PR provides the following advancements over a flat design:
  • Allows run-time design reconfiguration
  • Increases scalability of the design through time-multiplexing
  • Lowers cost and power consumption through efficient use of board space
  • Supports dynamic time-multiplexing functions in the design
  • Improves initial programming time through smaller bitstreams
  • Reduces system down-time through line upgrades
  • Enables easy system update by allowing remote hardware change
  • A simplified compilation flow for partial reconfiguration

Hierarchical Partial Reconfiguration

Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition software also supports hierarchical partial reconfiguration (HPR), with multiple parent and child design partitions, or multiple levels of partitions in a design. In HPR designs, a static region instantiates a parent PR region, and a parent PR region instantiates a child PR region. The same PR region reprogramming is possible for the child and parent partitions. Refer to Hierarchical Partial Reconfiguration.

Static Update Partial Reconfiguration

Static update partial reconfiguration (SUPR) allows you to define and modify a specialized static region, without requiring recompilation of all personas. This technique is useful for a portion of a design that you may possibly want to change for risk mitigation, but that never requires runtime reconfiguration. In PR without a SUPR partition, you must recompile all personas for any change to the static region. Refer to the Partial Reconfiguration Tutorials for detailed SUPR instructions.

Partial Reconfiguration Design Simulation

The Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition software supports simulation of PR persona transitions through the use of simulation multiplexers. You use the simulation multiplexers to change which persona drives logic inside the PR region during simulation. This simulation allows you to observe the resulting change and the intermediate effect in a reconfigurable partition. Refer to Partial Reconfiguration Design Simulation for details.