Three Steps to Higher Performance
By using the Quartus® II software and following these three steps, your design can run much faster in Altera’s Stratix® II and Cyclone® II FPGAs than in competing software and devices. For more detailed information on Altera’s third-party endorsed benchmarking methodology, please refer to the FPGA Performance Benchmarking Methodology white paper (PDF).
Step 1: Synthesis
If you’re using Synplicity Synplify software, use Synplify’s recommended settings for benchmarking. If you’re using the Quartus II integrated synthesis feature, change the “Analysis and Synthesis” optimization technique to “Speed” from its “Balanced” default.
Step 2: Place and Route Your Design
After importing your synthesis results to Quartus II software, set timing constraints for each clock. For Altera’s benchmarks, set each clock to 1 GHz. In normal practice set the clock constraints to your actual needs for best results. If your design has a phase-locked loop (PLL), make a clock setting for the PLL’s input clock and also set it to the high fMAX requirement. If you are comparing to designs compiled with the Xilinx ISE software, set I/O constraints on any clocks that have them in the Xilinx ISE design.
Run the Quartus II Design Space Explorer and select Advanced Search. From the Advanced tab:
- Select Exploration Space. Set exploration space to “Physical Synthesis with Retiming Space for Quartus II Integrated Synthesis Projects” or “Physical Synthesis with Retiming Space,” depending on which synthesis tool you’re using.
- Keep optimization goal set to “Optimize for Speed.”
- Set search method as ”Accelerated Search of Exploration Space.”
Step 3: Obtain Results
View all the Quartus II results in the Quartus II report panels. Quartus II software provides very thorough timing analysis by default.
Need Software for Benchmarking?
If you do not have the Quartus II software, you can download a 30-day evaluation to perform benchmarks on Altera® software and devices.
Our published results used the Synplicity Synplify software, but you can also use the Quartus II integrated synthesis feature or other third-party synthesis software for your designs. You can download a 20-day evaluation of the Synplicity software to perform benchmarks on Altera software and devices.
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