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Altera_Forum
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14 years ago

How to make NCO compiler use M9K blocks and not M144K

I am using the NCO compiler V10.1 to generate a ROM based NCO. I am using a stratix IV (EP4SE230F29C2) device.

According to both the manual and the wizard itself, the ROM should be implemented with M9K memory blocks. But to my disappointing surprise, it is implementing the NCO with M144K blocks. The NCO compiler manual even provides resource estimates in terms of M9K blocks.

Yet the compiler is ignoring its own estimation and goes on to use only M144K blocks. This is a major problem. I am instantiating multiple NCOs and the design won't fit. I have all the M9K blocks available in the world but the tool is insisting on using the M144K, which I don't have enough. Does anybody know what to do? Is this [yet] another Quartus II bug, or is there some hardware limitation here?

18 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    14 years ago

    try Assignments > Settings > Analysis and Synthesis Settings > More A & S Settings > Max number of M44K Blocks maybe in addition to (imported) partitions

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    14 years ago

    Thanks, I tried playing with the "Max number" settings. It doesn't help. It insists on using M144K blocks only.

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    14 years ago

    i confirmed with a single NCO core before i posted. it used M144K until i set the number of blocks to 0, in which case it used M9K

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    14 years ago

    Interesting. I tried it also but it fails for me. "can't fit design". I am using the windows version.

    What can I do with LogicLock?
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    14 years ago

    maybe reduce the design down to 1 NCO to see if you can get that to fit to M9K, then scale it up

    with LogicLock you can define fixed regions for each NCO instance which contain the specific number of memory blocks needed
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    14 years ago

    I did reduce it down to 1 NCO and it didn't work. That's what I was referring to above.

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    14 years ago

    It's a Large ROM based NCO, 32 bit accumulator, 16 bit phase resolution, 14 bit amplitude resolution, single output, no modulations, no dithering. I use VHDL.