With each release of the Vivado Design Suite, new IP versions are introduced. It is recommended that you upgrade the IP used in your designs at each new release. However, you can also use the older version as a static IP that is already configured and synthesized to avoid introducing any unnecessary changes into your design. To use the static version of an existing IP, all of the output products must have been previously generated for the IP, and no changes to those generated output files will be possible. For more information refer to this link in the Vivado Design Suite User Guide: Designing with IP (UG896).
To report on the current status of the IP in a design, you can use the
report_ip_status Tcl command. See
Vivado
Design Suite Tcl Command Reference Guide (UG835) for more information. If changes are needed,
you can selectively upgrade the IP in the design to the latest version. A change log for
each IP details the changes made and lists any design updates that are required. For
example, top-level port changes are occasionally made in newer IP versions, so some
design modification might be required. If the IP version has changed in the latest
release, the version used in the design becomes locked and must be used as a static IP
with the available output products, or must be updated to support the current release.
Locked IP are reported as locked, and appear with a lock symbol in the Sources window of
the Vivado IDE.