Quartus® Prime Standard Edition User Guide: Design Compilation

ID 683283
Date 10/22/2021
Public
Document Table of Contents

1.4.1. Reducing Compilation Time When Changing Source Files for One Partition

Scenario background: You set up your design to include partitions for several of the major design blocks, and now you have just performed a lengthy compilation of the entire design. An error is found in the HDL source file for one partition and it is being fixed. Because the design is currently meeting timing requirements, and the fix is not expected to affect timing performance, it makes sense to compile only the affected partition and preserve the rest of the design.

Use the flow in this example to update the source file in one partition without having to recompile the other parts of the design. To reduce the compilation time, instruct the software to reuse the post-fit netlists for the unchanged partitions. This flow also preserves the performance of these blocks, which reduces additional timing closure efforts.

Perform the following steps to update a single source file:

  1. Apply and save the fix to the HDL source file.
  2. On the Assignments menu, open the Design Partitions window.
  3. Change the netlist type of each partition, including the top-level entity, to Post-Fit to preserve as much as possible for the next compilation.
    • The Quartus® Prime software recompiles partitions by default when changes are detected in a source file. You can refer to the Partition Dependent Files table in the Analysis and Synthesis report to determine which partitions were recompiled. If you change an assignment but do not change the logic in a source file, you can set the netlist type to Source File for that partition to instruct the software to recompile the partition's source design files and its assignments.
  4. Click Start Compilation to incrementally compile the fixed HDL code. This compilation should take much less time than the initial full compilation.
  5. Simulate the design to ensure that the error is fixed, and use the Timing Analyzer report to ensure that timing results have not degraded.