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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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18 years ago

No timing path applicable to specified source and destination

I'm trying to achieve a 4ns hold timing on an external output-only data bus and an output-only clock that are both driven from my Cyclone II FPGA. I'm assigning the following th settings in Quartus II 7.1 :

From To Assignment Name Value Enabled

CLK_OUT_48 N_SLWR th Requirement 4 ns Yes

CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[0] th Requirement 4 ns Yes

CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[1] th Requirement 4 ns Yes

CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[2] th Requirement 4 ns Yes

CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[3] th Requirement 4 ns Yes

CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[4] th Requirement 4 ns Yes

CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[5] th Requirement 4 ns Yes

CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[6] th Requirement 4 ns Yes

CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[7] th Requirement 4 ns Yes

CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[8] th Requirement 4 ns Yes

CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[9] th Requirement 4 ns Yes

CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[10] th Requirement 4 ns Yes

CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[11] th Requirement 4 ns Yes

CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[12] th Requirement 4 ns Yes

CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[13] th Requirement 4 ns Yes

CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[14] th Requirement 4 ns Yes

CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[15] th Requirement 4 ns Yes

The nodes were taken from the Node Finder and i have tried both the "post fitting" and "pins" filters. Regardless how i specify the source/destination i end up with the following in the compilation report (under "Ignored Timing Assignments"):

th Requirement 5 ns CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[0] No timing path applicable to specified source and destination

th Requirement 5 ns CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[10] No timing path applicable to specified source and destination

th Requirement 5 ns CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[11] No timing path applicable to specified source and destination

th Requirement 5 ns CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[12] No timing path applicable to specified source and destination

th Requirement 5 ns CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[13] No timing path applicable to specified source and destination

th Requirement 5 ns CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[14] No timing path applicable to specified source and destination

th Requirement 5 ns CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[15] No timing path applicable to specified source and destination

th Requirement 5 ns CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[1] No timing path applicable to specified source and destination

th Requirement 5 ns CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[2] No timing path applicable to specified source and destination

th Requirement 5 ns CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[3] No timing path applicable to specified source and destination

th Requirement 5 ns CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[4] No timing path applicable to specified source and destination

th Requirement 5 ns CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[5] No timing path applicable to specified source and destination

th Requirement 5 ns CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[6] No timing path applicable to specified source and destination

th Requirement 5 ns CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[7] No timing path applicable to specified source and destination

th Requirement 5 ns CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[8] No timing path applicable to specified source and destination

th Requirement 5 ns CLK_OUT_48 DATA_OUT[9] No timing path applicable to specified source and destination

th Requirement 4 ns CLK_OUT_48 N_SLWR No timing path applicable to specified source and destination

tsu Requirement 4 ns * CLK_OUT_60 No timing path applicable to specified source and destination

Any help is appreciated.

13 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor

    FYI: I gave up on the Quartus II timing assignments and instead inverted the clock signal and followed with four LCELLs. This resulted in my clock aligned perfectly in the middle of my data. I have around 4 ns margin in either direction so i'm 'hoping' that this will work despite variation in delay with different silicon batches...

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    The point is, that Quartus software has no means to achieve a 4 ns order of magnitude delay in place and route. The said output register to output pin delay should be utilized in timing-driven P&R automaticly, but probably you're not using output registers in your design. Comparing output and LE register usage, LE register would have generally higher tco, cause routíng delay is added. Thus it could be, that Quartus already has achieved the highest possible tco value. Some amount of output delay could be added by decreasing current strength, increasing also sensitivity to parameter variations.

    Using a phase shifted PLL clock is the most flexible way to adjust timing, but may inappropriate for your design.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor

    Thanks FvM. You are probably correct in that a 4ns programmable delay is not possible to achieve (possibly because i'm not using output registers). The LCELL approach works fine so i'll leave it at that - the clock frequency is only 120 MHz so i have lots of wiggle room before the timings break down so this should work fine.