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Designing with Intel Quartus Prime - Advanced

Advanced Level - 2 days

This is the second part (days 3 to 4) of the full 4-day Designing with Intel® Quartus® Prime course below. For specific variants of this class please contact Doulos.

Designing with Intel Quartus Prime

(formerly Altera Quartus II)

Standard and Advanced Level - 4 days

This intense and very practical training course covers all the essential concepts and techniques required to design Intel® FPGAs, including the use of the design, implementation, verification and debugging tools that are part of the Quartus® Prime environment. Learn how to avoid common design problems, save time, boost efficiency and gain tips and insights from an experienced Intel designer and expert tutor. 

The course is designed to meet the needs of all users, from those new to Intel Quartus Prime, to expert designers looking to maximize the potential of their Intel FPGA designs.

Contact us to book the full training course or to discuss which module is best suited to your individual or team's requirements.

Existing users who wish to become more productive by extending their knowledge of Quartus Prime and exploiting the latest features and techniques. 

Design engineers who are new to Quartus Prime, and want quickly to get fully up to speed with all the key features of Quartus Prime. Please see the pre-requisites below. 

Not sure how much training you need? 
Looking to attend specific modules? 

Please contact your local Doulos team to discuss your requirements.

Part of a team? 
On-site training is also available to optimize the course to your precise needs, experience, and project context.

  • Digital and FPGA Design competence
  • A prior knowledge of Verilog or VHDL languages is expected but not compulsory

 

In addition for the Advanced module: 

  • Solid background on Static Timing Analysis using Intel Timing Analyzer and experience with Quartus Prime and its features (or previous appropriate training - for example: prior attendance of days 1-2).


Please discuss your experience with Doulos prior to booking.

Part 1 - Essentials

  • How to take advantage of the powerful and rich Intel FPGA Design Tools and environment: The Intel® Quartus® Prime Software Suite
  • Mastering the numerous tools and the rich design flow that's essential to designing and debugging Intel FPGAs efficiently
  • The essential concepts of Timing Constraints and Timing Analysis.

 

Part 2 - Advanced

  • Mastery of the timings aspects of FPGA Design:
    • Timing Constraints
    • Timing Exceptions
    • Timing Optimization Techniques
    • Synopsys Design Constraints (SDC)
    • Source-Synchronous Interfaces
    • Feedback Design
    • Timing Analysis and Tcl (optional)

 

The course is applicable to all versions of Intel Quartus.

Appropriate topics are followed by practical hands-on exercises.

Please contact Doulos to book the full training course or to discuss which module is best suited to your individual or team's requirements.


DAYS 1-2: DESIGNING WITH INTEL QUARTUS PRIME - ESSENTIALS

Designing with Quartus Prime - Design Flow basics, scripting & STA fundamentals (Day 1)

  • Introduction to Intel® Quartus® Prime software
    Intel Quartus software versions : Lite vs Std vs Pro.
    Design Flow. GUI. Resetting the Layout.
  • Introduction to Quartus Projects
    Key files. Creating a Project from scratch.
    Design files, default settings and priority.
    Launching the compilation tasks.
  • Practical Exercise 1 (Optional)
  • Quartus design flow and compilation tips
    The complete design flow and tools.
    Processing options, Managing the messages: the Message Suppression Manager.
    Compilation reports.
  • Practical Exercise 2 – part 1
  • Static Timing Analysis fundamentals
    Introduction to Timing Analysis and SDC Language.
    Timing Analysis Basics.
    Synchronous and Asynchronous analyses.
    Introduction to the industry-standard Synopsys Design Constraints (SDC) language.
    SDC Survival Guide for “Must Know” constraints, often sufficient for simple designs.
  • Practical Exercise 2 – part 2
  • Advanced Quartus Project management
    Project Archive & Restore.
    Project Cleanup.
    Project Revisions ! (an essential feature). Creating and comparing revisions.
    The Viewers: RTL, technology Map, Post-Layout, State Machines
    DRC : the Design Assistant
    The Advisors.
  • Practical Exercise on FPGA board
  • Design Flow Automation - Scripting
    For improved productivity and quality, design tasks and project management can be automated and
    secured with command-line scripts and Tcl scripts: Project creation, file management, archival,
    cleanup, compilation, bitstream creation, FPGA configuration, & programming, result testing, etc.
  • Optional Exercise

Designing with Quartus Prime - Real-time Debugging, Timing Analyzer & Design Analysis (Day 2)

  • In-System Memory Contents Editor + In-System Sources & Probes.
    Two very useful tools, free and easy to use.
    Control and monitor the inside of your FPGA in real time, interactively, all through the JTag connection.
    Concept, Applications, How-To.
  • Practical Exercise on FPGA board
  • SignalTap
    Embedded Real Time Logic Analyzers to debug your design in real time.
    Concepts, use cases, applications, limitations.
    Storage modes, triggering, sampling, storing.
    Creating the Embedded Logic Analyzer, implementation, preparation/configuration, compilation.
    Static and dynamic configuration.
    How-Tos.
    Viewing Real Time captures of State Machines.
  • Practical Exercise on FPGA board
  • Advanced SignalTap
    Advanced Features of Signal Tap for more complex designs and situations :
    - Storage Qualifier,
    - State-Based Trigger flow,
    - Mnemonic Tables
    - PowerUp Trigger,
    Tapping from Technology Map Viewers.
    Scripting.
  • End of previous Signal Tap exercise.

  • Introduction to Intel Timing Analyzer
    The Timing Analyzer always runs, during P&R and at the end of compilation to create sign-off reports !
    Launching Timing Analyzer in interactive mode
    Timing Analyzer GUI, the panes and their functions
    The SDC constraints (text) editor, templates and interactive constraints composition
  • Timing Analyzer Design Flow
    Netlist generation
    Constraints entry
    Activate the constraints in the project
    Full Compilation
    Post-compilation reports and analysis
  • Practical T-A Exercise 1
  • Timing Analyzer Reports
    Creating the reports
    - Summary
    - Detailed
    - Advanced reporting

DAYS 3-4: DESIGNING WITH INTEL QUARTUS PRIME - ADVANCED

Designing with Quartus Prime - Timing Constraints Fundamentals & Advanced (Day 3)

  • Timing Constraints - Clocks
    Reminder about SDC Netlist terms
    Using the Name Finder - Finder Filters and examples
    - Base Clocks,
    - PLLs
    - Generated Clocks
    - Virtual Clocks.
    - Clock Uncertainty, Jitter analysis.
    Reporting and checking clocks constraints.
  • Practical T-A Exercise 2
  • Timing Constraints - I/Os and Synchronous Interfaces
    Constraining Combinatorial interfaces,
    Constraining System Synchronous Inputs and Outputs
    I/Os Minimum and Maximum Delays,
    Virtual Clocks,
    Pin Load and Advanced I/O Timings,
    Reporting IO Timings.
  • Practical T-A Exercise 3
  • Timing Exceptions – False paths & Clock groups
    False Paths Logic-based and Timing-based
    Re-Synchronizers
    Clock Groups
    Clock Muxing
    Reporting Exceptions
  • Timing Exceptions – Multi-cycle Paths
    -Multicycle Logic to open the window
    -Window shifting
    End Multicycle Setup & Hold (EMS-EMH) constraints
  • Optional T-A Exercise 4
  • Timing Optimization Techniques
    Reminder about Timing advisor and main Optimization principles.
    Synthesis Options, Timing Driven Synthesis, WYSIWIG Re-synthesis,
    Physical synthesis, Register re-timing, Register duplication. Pros & Cons.

Designing with Quartus Prime - Advanced Timing course (Day 4)

  • More on SDC
    Generated clock (by register)
    Clock uncertainty
    Using clock uncertainty for over-constraining
    Reason to use Virtual clocks
    Constraining I/Os, “FPGA-Centric” approach
  • Timing Exceptions (advanced)
    Advanced concepts on Multicycles Constraints (Setup, Hold).
    Using Start Multicycle Setup & Hold constraints (SMS,SMH)
    Management of the Timing Exceptions and their Priorities in Timing Analyzer.
    Clock Enables analysis with multicycle, using the Fanout Registers Constraints.
  • Additional features for constraining
    Time groups
    Delays and Skew
    set_net_delay
    set_max_skew
  • Optional: TQ Advanced Exercise 1
  • Source-Synchronous Interfaces - SDR
    Introduction to Source Synchronous Interfaces. Concepts and use.
    SDR and DDR schemes, Center-aligned and Edge-aligned.
    SDC Constraints for SDR Source-Synchronous Input and Output Interfaces.
    Different case of analysis (FPGA-centric or Board System),
    Virtual Clocks, PLLs management. Associated Timing Reports.
  • Practical Exercise
  • Source-Synchronous Interfaces - DDR
    SDC Constraints for DDR Source-Synchronous Input and Output Interfaces. Different case of analysis
    (FPGA-centric or Board System), PLLs/DDIO management. Exceptions. Associated Timing Reports.
    Practical Exercise: constraining a DDR Ti ADC interface
  • Feedback Design
    Concept, analysis and associated constraints, useful to constrain SDRAM, SPI, SSRAM interfaces (for
    example). Clock and Data cases. Associated Timing Reports.
    Example of a Quad-SPI IP.
  • Optional: Timing Analysis and Tcl
    Quartus Tcl Packages
    Running TA from command line
    SDC constraints for P&R use only
    Timing Analysis script examples
    Constraining JTag paths

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