Stub FPGA Project - Passing Changes to the FPGA Designer

With the PCB project linked to the Stub FPGA project, the PCB Designer can carry out changes to signal characteristics or perform pin swapping in the PCB document and pass these changes to the Stub FPGA project as normal, using the FPGA Workspace Map dialog. See Configuring IO Standards and Pin Swapping in the PCB Document for more details on how to manage such changes.

Consider the case where a pin swap has been made in the PCB document. This change must be passed through to the FPGA component schematic sheet and then on into the Stub FPGA project – updating the appropriate constraint file in the linked configuration with the swap data. This scenario is illustrated, for a single pin swap, in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Pin swap data in PCB passed through schematic to Stub FPGA project.

In this case, the pins of two output signals – AUDIO_MIC_EN and SPI_CLK – have been swapped (or rather, the net labels for the two signals moved between the two pins Y7 and AA6).

When the relevant design change to the PCB project has been passed to the linked Stub FPGA project, this Stub project can now be sent to the FPGA Designer who has the full, Master FPGA design project. Remember, the two design projects may be under development a few offices apart in the same building, or maybe even on opposite sides of the globe. Using the Stub FPGA project in order to synchronize changes in either design breaks down the distance barrier.

When the Stub FPGA project is received by the FPGA Designer, it should be opened, alongside the Master FPGA design project, in the Projects panel. Ensure that the top-level schematic for the Master FPGA project is open as the active document in the main design window, and that the Master FPGA project has focus in the Projects panel.

Figure 2. Ensure the Master and Stub FPGA projects are open and that the Master has focus.

From the main Project menu, choose the Import Changes From FPGA Project command. The Import FPGA Project Changes Wizard will appear (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Import FPGA Project Changes Wizard.

The Wizard is the key to passing design changes from the (remote) PCB project, through the Stub FPGA project and into the full (Master) FPGA design project.

Use the following linked pages, in sequence, to gain information about each page in the Wizard:

Choosing the FPGA Project to Import from
Choosing the Configurations to use
Updating Signal Names in the Master FPGA Project
Updating Pin Allocations
Updating Signal Constraints