Why does fitter take a long time when a large number of protocol IP instances/profiles are used for GTS Dynamic Reconfiguration in the Quartus® Prime Pro Edition software versions 25.3.1 and earlier?

Description

The fitter process may take significantly longer when many IP instances or profiles are used for Dynamic Reconfiguration in Quartus Prime Pro Edition software versions 25.3.1 and earlier. Depending on the number of IP profiles, the fitter may take several days to complete. 

Resolution

The fitter process may take significantly longer when many IP instances or profiles are used for Dynamic Reconfiguration in Quartus Prime Pro Edition software version 25.3.1 and earlier. To overcome this problem, some of the precautions measured users will have to take to prevent this longer fitter runtime problem. Some steps are mentioned in section 7 point#6 of GTS Dynamic Reconfiguration Controller IP User Guide, version 25.3.1. 

• Add SDC constraints for mutually exclusive IP variants into clock groups, although this is ultimately required. Identifying and constraining these exclusive clocks constraints before running the fitter can help avoid prolonged fitter runtimes. For example: 

set_clock_groups -physically_exclusive -group [get_clocks
dr_top_inst|ip_variant_1_inst*|*]  
-group [get_clocks dr_top_inst|ip_variant_2_inst*|*] 

• Add the following constraints in SDC can help avoid prolonged STA runtime for a large number of profiles. 

qsta_utility::disable_slower_multi_clocks 

• Additional include the following line in the Dynamic Reconfiguration Quartus Project QSF file can significantly reduce fitter time for a large number of profiles. 

set_global_assignment name REMOVE_SLOWER_CLOCKS_DURING_FITTER ON 

• Note: In your project .qsf file, ensure that the SDC_FILE QSF assignment is placed after the IP_FILE QSF assignments. Failure to do so results in a warning in the Quartus Prime Pro Edition software, and the SDC constraints are then ignored as mentioned in Article 343689. 

  This problem is scheduled to be fixed in a future release of the Quartus Prime Pro Edition software.