Multicycle Paths - 2023.2 English

Vivado Design Suite User Guide: Using Constraints (UG903)

Document ID
UG903
Release Date
2023-11-01
Version
2023.2 English

The Multicycle Path constraint allows you to modify the setup and hold relationships determined by the timer, based on the design clock waveforms. By default, the Vivado IDE timing engine performs a single-cycle analysis. This analysis can be too restrictive, and can be inappropriate for certain logic paths.

The most common example is the logical path that requires more than one clock cycle for the data to stabilize at the endpoint. If the control circuitry of the path startpoint and endpoint allows it, AMD recommends that you use the Multicycle Path constraint to relax the setup requirement.

The hold requirement might still maintain the original relationship, depending on your intent. This helps the timing-driven algorithms to focus on other paths that have tighter requirements and that are challenging. It can also help in reducing runtime.