Improving Skew in UltraScale and UltraScale+ Devices - 2022.1 English

UltraFast Design Methodology Guide for Xilinx FPGAs and SoCs (UG949)

Document ID
UG949
Release Date
2022-06-08
Version
2022.1 English
  • Avoid using an MMCM or PLL to perform simple division of a BUFG_GT clock. BUFG_GT cells have the ability to divide down the input clock. The following figure shows how to save an MMCM resource and implement balanced clock trees for two clocks originating from a GTHE3_CHANNEL cell.
Figure 1. Implementing Balanced Clock Trees using UltraScale BUFG_GTs

  • Use the CLOCK_DELAY_GROUP on the driver net of critical synchronous clocks to force CLOCK_ROOT and route matching during placement and routing. The buffers of the clocks must be driven by the same cell for this constraint to be honored.
    Note: This optimization technique is automatically applied by the report_qor_suggestions Tcl command.
  • If a timing path is having difficulty meeting timing and the skew is larger than expected, it is possible that the timing path is crossing an SLR or an I/O column. If this is the case, physical constraints such as Pblocks may be used to force the source and destination into a single SLR or to prevent the crossing of an I/O column.
  • When working with high speed synchronous clock domain crossing timing paths, constraining the location of the clock modifying blocks, such as the MMCM/PLL, to the center of the clock loads can aid in meeting timing. The decreased delay on the clock networks will result in less timing pessimism on the clock domain crossing paths.
  • Verify that clock nets with CLOCK_DEDICATED_ROUTE=FALSE constraint are routed with global clocking resources. Use ANY_CMT_COLUMN instead of FALSE to ensure the clock nets with routing waivers are routed with dedicated clocking resources only. If the clock net is routed with fabric interconnect, identify the design change or clocking placement constraint needed to resolve this situation and make the implementation tools use global clocking resources instead. Clock paths routed with fabric interconnect can have high clock skew or be impacted by switching noise, leading to poor performance or non-functional designs.