Wire crossing in a large partially reconfigurable design.

[Student]

Hi, there:

I am compiling a design which takes up 80% of the XC2V6000...After I put in
the
bus macros and run implementation, I found that there are a large number of
wire
crossings...For example, some VCC_FAKE_LEFT can route as long as three
slices
into the Right...vice versa...These wires just run into a switch boxes on
the opposite
side then flip back, but not connected to any slices I think...The same
phenomenon
never happened in my previous design which only uses 30% of the FPGA...

Is this acceptable for a partially reconfigurable design?

Best Regards,
Kelvin

 

[Kevin Neilson]

"Student" <student@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:409866a1@news.starhub.net.sg...

Hi, there:

I am compiling a design which takes up 80% of the XC2V6000...After I put
in
the
bus macros and run implementation, I found that there are a large number
of
wire
crossings...For example, some VCC_FAKE_LEFT can route as long as three
slices
into the Right...vice versa...These wires just run into a switch boxes on
the opposite
side then flip back, but not connected to any slices I think...The same
phenomenon
never happened in my previous design which only uses 30% of the FPGA...

Is this acceptable for a partially reconfigurable design?

Best Regards,
Kelvin

Just as with sausages, you don't want to delve too deeply into the

construction of an implemented FPGA. The router uses an iterative process
which might not yield the perfect solution, but usually one that works.
Even if it's not perfect, there's not much you can do about it. Just try
some hand routing and you will be happy to let the router work on its own.
-Kevin

 

[Ray Andraka]

This is an artifact of Xilinx's place and route must finish faster philosophy.
It used to be that if you got a good placement, the route would be near optimal
for that placement. As devices got bigger, the route time increased too much
for auto-placed designs, so now the router only works as hard as it needs to to
meet timing. The result is you get many routes that do not take the shortest
path, and worse, many nets become the critical path. In a densely placed
design, the result is the routing gets congested and the tools may not find a
routing solution that meets timing at all. Apparently, not many of Xilinx's
big customers are running the FPGAs at the top of the performance envelope,
because if they were I am sure this would be a much highr priority issue.

As for partial reconfiguration, this behavior is a train-wreck. In order to be
successful, you need to keep the routing within the slices you are
reconfiguring. The current tools have no apparent way of putting fences around
the logic to keep a route in or out of an area.

Student wrote:

Hi, there:

I am compiling a design which takes up 80% of the XC2V6000...After I put in
the
bus macros and run implementation, I found that there are a large number of
wire
crossings...For example, some VCC_FAKE_LEFT can route as long as three
slices
into the Right...vice versa...These wires just run into a switch boxes on
the opposite
side then flip back, but not connected to any slices I think...The same
phenomenon
never happened in my previous design which only uses 30% of the FPGA...

Is this acceptable for a partially reconfigurable design?

Best Regards,
Kelvin

--
--Ray Andraka, P.E.
President, the Andraka Consulting Group, Inc.
401/884-7930 Fax 401/884-7950
email ray@andraka.com
http://www.andraka.com

"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, 1759

 

[Student]

I tried to define a guard area on the 8 slices where I placed the Bus
Macros, basically I defined
some additional area_groups to contain the placement of submodules, leaving
the 8 slices gap
not filled by much logic...

The wire crossing got better, but never gone...

What other tricks may I try?

Best Regards,
Kelvin





"Ray Andraka" <ray@andraka.com> wrote in message
news:409AE2E6.F229545C@andraka.com...

This is an artifact of Xilinx's place and route must finish faster
philosophy.
It used to be that if you got a good placement, the route would be near
optimal
for that placement. As devices got bigger, the route time increased too
much
for auto-placed designs, so now the router only works as hard as it needs
to to
meet timing. The result is you get many routes that do not take the
shortest
path, and worse, many nets become the critical path. In a densely placed
design, the result is the routing gets congested and the tools may not
find a
routing solution that meets timing at all. Apparently, not many of
Xilinx's
big customers are running the FPGAs at the top of the performance
envelope,
because if they were I am sure this would be a much highr priority issue.

As for partial reconfiguration, this behavior is a train-wreck. In order
to be
successful, you need to keep the routing within the slices you are
reconfiguring. The current tools have no apparent way of putting fences
around
the logic to keep a route in or out of an area.

Student wrote:

Hi, there:

I am compiling a design which takes up 80% of the XC2V6000...After I put
in
the
bus macros and run implementation, I found that there are a large number
of
wire
crossings...For example, some VCC_FAKE_LEFT can route as long as three
slices
into the Right...vice versa...These wires just run into a switch boxes
on
the opposite
side then flip back, but not connected to any slices I think...The same
phenomenon
never happened in my previous design which only uses 30% of the FPGA...

Is this acceptable for a partially reconfigurable design?

Best Regards,
Kelvin

--
--Ray Andraka, P.E.
President, the Andraka Consulting Group, Inc.
401/884-7930 Fax 401/884-7950
email ray@andraka.com
http://www.andraka.com

"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, 1759