Specifying the Clock Frequency - 2021.1 English

Vitis High-Level Synthesis User Guide (UG1399)

Document ID
UG1399
Release Date
2021-06-16
Version
2021.1 English

For C and C++ designs only a single clock is supported. The same clock is applied to all functions in the design.

The clock period, in ns, is set in the Solutions > Solutions Setting. The default clock period is 10 ns. Vitis HLS uses the concept of a clock uncertainty to provide a user defined timing margin. You can define the clock uncertainty for your design using the Solutions Setting dialog box as well. The default clock uncertainty, when it is not specified, is 27% of the clock period.

Tip: You can also set the clock period using the create_clock Tcl command, and the clock uncertainty using the set_clock_uncertainty Tcl command.

Using the clock frequency and device target information Vitis HLS estimates the timing of operations in the design but it cannot know the final component placement and net routing: these operations are performed by logic synthesis of the output RTL. As such, Vitis HLS cannot know the exact delays.

To calculate the clock period used for synthesis, Vitis HLS subtracts the clock uncertainty from the clock period, as shown in the following figure.

Figure 1. Clock Period and Margin

This provides a user specified margin to ensure downstream processes, such as logic synthesis and place & route, have enough timing margin to complete their operations. If the FPGA is mostly used the placement of cells and routing of nets to connect the cells might not be ideal and might result in a design with larger than expected timing delays. For a situation such as this, an increased timing margin ensures Vitis HLS does not create a design with too much logic packed into each clock cycle and allows RTL synthesis to satisfy timing in cases with less than ideal placement and routing options.

Vitis HLS aims to satisfy all constraints: timing, throughput, latency. However, if a constraints cannot be satisfied, Vitis HLS always outputs an RTL design.

If the timing constraints inferred by the clock period cannot be met Vitis HLS issues message SCHED-644, as shown below, and creates a design with the best achievable performance.

@W [SCHED-644] Max operation delay (<operation_name> 2.39ns) exceeds the effective 
cycle time

Even if Vitis HLS cannot satisfy the timing requirements for a particular path, it still achieves timing on all other paths. This behavior allows you to evaluate if higher optimization levels or special handling of those failing paths by downstream logic syntheses can pull-in and ultimately satisfy the timing.

Important: It is important to review the constraint report after synthesis to determine if all constraints is met: the fact that Vitis HLS produces an output design does not guarantee the design meets all performance constraints. Review the Performance Estimates section of the design report.

A design report is generated for each function in the hierarchy when synthesis completes and can be viewed in the solution reports folder. The worse case timing for the entire design is reported as the worst case in each function report. There is no need to review every report in the hierarchy.

If the timing violations are too severe to be further optimized and corrected by downstream processes, review the techniques for specifying an exact latency and specifying exact implementation cores before considering a faster target technology.