Using the USER_CLOCK_ROOT Property on a Clock Net - 2023.1 English

UltraFast Design Methodology Guide for FPGAs and SoCs (UG949)

Document ID
UG949
Release Date
2023-06-07
Version
2023.1 English

You can use the USER_CLOCK_ROOT property to force the clock root location of a clock driven by a clock buffer. Specifying the USER_CLOCK_ROOT property influences the design placement, because it impacts both insertion delay and skew by modifying the clock routing. The USER_CLOCK_ROOT value corresponds to a clock region, and you must set the property on the net segment directly driven by the high fanout clock buffer. Following is an example:

set_property USER_CLOCK_ROOT X2Y3 [get_nets clkgen/wbClk_o]
Figure 1. USER_CLOCK_ROOT Applied on the Net Segment Driven by the Clock Buffer

After placement, you can use the CLOCK_ROOT property to query the actual clock root as shown in the following example. The CLOCK_ROOT reports the assigned root whether it was user assigned or automatically assigned by the Vivado tools.

get_property CLOCK_ROOT [get_nets clkgen/wbClk_o]
=> X2Y3

Another way to review the clock root assignments of your implemented design is to use the report_clock_utilization Tcl command. For example:

report_clock_utilization -clock_roots_only

The following figure shows this report.

Figure 2. report_clock_utilization Clock Root Assignments