Why do I see SDM-based FPGAs fail to boot from QSPI flash?

Description

Due to a problem in the Device Firmware from Quartus® Prime Pro Edition Software version 21.3 and later, Secure Device Manager (SDM) based FPGA and eASIC™ devices may fail to boot from QSPI flash on hardware that is not designed to operate the SDM QSPI flash interface at speeds higher than 80 MHz. This can be either due to the presence of long traces or topologies that involve external connectors. 

This issue is known to occur on all supported SDM-based boot flows.

The following device families are impacted : 

• Stratix® 10 FPGAs
• Agilex™ 7  FPGAs
• eASIC™ N5X Devices

Resolution

This problem is scheduled to be fixed in a future release of the Device Firmware for Stratix® 10, Agilex™ 7 and eASIC™ N5X devices.