AN 886: Intel Agilex® 7 Device Design Guidelines

ID 683634
Date 10/09/2023
Public
Document Table of Contents

5.3.5. NoC Assignments

After the NoC IP is instantiated in your design, you need to specify additional information to set up the hard memory NoC:
  • Grouping (whether each NoC element is associated with the hard memory NoC along the top edge or bottom edge of the FPGA)
  • Connectivity between initiator and target bridges
  • Base addresses for each initiator-target connection
  • Read and write bandwidth requirements and transaction sizes for each initiator-target connection

For the regular compilation flow in the Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition software, these connections are specified using the NoC Assignment Editor after running Analysis & Elaboration. Once this connectivity is specified, you can generate a file including this connectivity for RTL simulation. An optional early RTL simulation flow allows you to make these connections in Platform Designer and generate this simulation file when generating HDL for your Platform Designer system. This early RTL simulation flow does not require running Analysis & Elaboration before running RTL simulation. However, it does still require entering this connectivity additionally in the NoC Assignment Editor for compilation in the Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition.

For the regular compilation flow, instantiate your NoC IP either directly in RTL or in your Platform Designer system and run Analysis & Elaboration on your design. Use the NoC Assignment Editor in the Intel® Quartus® Prime software to specify all these assignments. Once these assignments are complete, you can generate a simulation include file with all the necessary information on connectivity and address mapping for use with RTL simulation.

To use the optional early RTL simulation flow, instantiate your NoC IP in your Platform Designer system. Within the Platform Designer tool, specify initiator-target connectivity and address mapping. When you generate HDL for your Platform Designer system, the tool also generates a simulation include file with all the necessary information on connectivity and address mapping for use with RTL simulation. When using this early RTL simulation flow, you must also specify NoC connectivity and addressing using the regular compilation flow described above. Run Analysis & Elaboration and specify your connectivity using the NoC Assignment Editor.

In the NoC Assignment Editor, the bandwidth requirements and transaction size information is optional. However, Intel recommends to enter this information as it is used when analyzing performance and estimating power for the hard memory NoC.

For more information about these flows and the NoC Assignment Editor, refer to the Intel Agilex® 7 M-Series FPGA Network-on-Chip (NoC) User Guide.