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Altera_Forum
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7 years ago

Merge partitions in Quartus Pro - Equivalent of "quartus_cdb --merge"

In Quartus pro 17.1, how can I merge all partitions of a design so that only a single QDB file is needed to reuse this design elsewhere?

In Quartus Standard, this could be accomplished via "quartus_cdb --merge", which would take a design that includes multiple QXP netlist files and merge it so it could be exported (via "quartus_cdb --incremental_compilation_export") as a single QXP.

The goal is that later on a user of the design could import a single QDB file without the requirement of importing QDB files for sub-partitions.

Edit: specified version = Quartus Pro 17.1

2 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    7 years ago

    Hi,

    Refer the “2.11.4.1 Import and Export Version-Compatible Designs from the Design Flow” & “2.11.4.2 Quartus_cdb Executables to Manage Version-Compatible Databases”

    From the following link,

    https://www.altera.com/content/dam/altera-www/global/en_us/pdfs/literature/hb/qts/qts-qpp-handbook.pdf

    Let me know if this has helped resolve the issue you are facing or if you need any further assistance.

    Best Regards

    Vikas Jathar

    Intel Customer Support – Engineering

    (Under Contract to Intel)
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    7 years ago

    --- Quote Start ---

    Hi,

    Refer the “2.11.4.1 Import and Export Version-Compatible Designs from the Design Flow” & “2.11.4.2 Quartus_cdb Executables to Manage Version-Compatible Databases”

    From the following link,

    https://www.altera.com/content/dam/altera-www/global/en_us/pdfs/literature/hb/qts/qts-qpp-handbook.pdf

    Let me know if this has helped resolve the issue you are facing or if you need any further assistance.

    Best Regards

    Vikas Jathar

    Intel Customer Support – Engineering

    (Under Contract to Intel)

    --- Quote End ---

    Thank you Vikas. I have attempted to do this, but I do not believe the export_design command works when you plan to reuse the design as a sub-partition of another. I hope to merge my entire design into a single QDB file, and then use that QDB file as a sub-module/sub-partition of another design. This is straightforward in Quartus Standard with merged QXP files. When I attempt to reuse the QDB file as a partition after using export_design (as suggested in the link provided), I get the following error:

    Error (18633): The archive "<my_sub_design>.qdb" contains a full design and cannot be imported via the import_block comamnd nor as a source file in the QSF.

    I am including the QDB file in the design via:

    set_instance_assignment -name PARTITION <name> -to <instance> -entity <top>

    set_instance_assignment -name QDB_FILE_PARTITION <file> -to <instance> -entity <top>

    The way I was originally exporting the design was via "quartus_cdb --export_partition root_partition" (see https://www.alteraforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57908 for more info). The issue with exporting the root partition is that I then need to import that QDB file and QDB files for all sub-partitions in the consumer project.