The Vivado Integrated Design Environment (IDE) provides mechanisms for the following:
- Exploring IP in the IP catalog
- Customizing IP
- Managing centralized location of customized IP.
The Vivado IDE can create a special project for managing customizations and output products of specified IP, referred to as a Manage IP Project. From the Manage IP Project, you can view the IP catalog, customize IP, and generate output products. The IP customization (XCI) and generated output products are stored in separate directories located outside of the Manage IP project. The Manage IP project manages the IP design runs for the generation of the synthesized design checkpoint (DCP) files and other output products. Customized IP, with all of the output products generated, can be used as configured in multiple designs. See Adding Existing IP to a Project.
When working in teams, or if the design uses many Xilinx IP, create and maintain your customized IP in a location outside of the Vivado project structure. This method makes revision control more straightforward and allows for ease of sharing customized IP with others. This is also the recommended methodology for working with IP in a non-project, script-based flow.