136 Xilinx Development System
Xilinx System Generator v2.1 Reference Guide
cell array of strings in the box labeled IOB Pad Locations. Locations are package-
specific; in this example a Virtex-E 2000 in a FG680 package is used. The location
constraints for the Din bus are provided in the dialog box as {'A36', 'C36', 'B36', 'D35'}.
This is translated into constraints in the .ucf file in the following way:
# Loc constraints
NET "Din<0>" LOC = "D35";
NET "Din<1>" LOC = "B36";
NET "Din<2>" LOC = "C35";
NET "Din_valid" LOC = "A36";
Important Issues
(1) It is important to note that design hierarchy is used to specify the assignment of
blocks to clock groups. The project files created by System Generator for XST (Xilinx
Synthesis Technology), Synplify and Leonardo Spectrum tell the synthesis tools to
preserve this hierarchy. If hierarchy is not preserved, block names will change and
constraints will no longer work.
(2) XST downcases instance and port names. If the names of blocks in your Simulink
model contain capital letters, you will get warning messages like the following from
the Xilinx downstream software translate step, ngdbuild:
WARNING:NgdBuild:383 - A case sensitive search for the INST,
PAD, or NET element refered to by a constraint entry in the
UCF file that accompanies this design has failed, while a
case insensitive search is in progress. The result of the
case insensitive search will be used, but warnings will
accompany each and every use of a case insensitive result.
Constraints are case sensitive with respect to user-
specified identifiers, which includes names of logic
elements in a design. For the sake of compatibility with
currently existing .xnf, .xtf, and .xff files, Software will
allow a case insensitive search for INST, PAD, or NET
elements referenced in a .ucf file.
WARNING:NgdBuild:384 - Found case insensitive match for INST
name 'Delay1'. INST is 'delay1'.
Constraints Files
System Generator writes constraints to two files. The files are identical except for the
notation used to identify buses. If the design is named my_project, the files are
my_project.ucf and my_project_paren.ucf.
In my_project.ucf, buses are denoted with angle brackets. This file should be
used with XST from within Xilinx ISE 4.1i Project Navigator and with Synplify and
Leonardo Spectrum when using the project files created by System Generator.
In my_project_paren.ucf, buses are denoted with parentheses. This file is
needed only when using Synplify or Leonardo Spectrum from within Project
Navigator. When this is the case, you should discard the original my_project.ucf,
and rename my_project_paren.ucf to my_project.ucf.