Versal devices have a significantly different architecture from previous devices, which requires special considerations when defining your design hierarchy. Planning your hierarchy early in the design process helps to minimize issues later. In Versal devices, the software must operate with the hardware. To ensure a seamless hardware handoff from the Vivado Design Suite to the Vitis environment, follow these recommendations when defining your design hierarchy:
- Contain the addressable portions of your design in a single BD hierarchy.
Addressable portions of your design include CIPS/PS Wizard, NoC, transceivers, MicroBlaze™ processors, and any other addressable elements. The BD can be at the top of your design hierarchy with an AMD-managed top-level RTL wrapper. You can also instantiate the BD at the top-level of your custom RTL.
If you incorporate other IP into your block design using any of the methods included in this chapter, use methods that support hardware handoff. For example, using block design containers to compartmentalize and partition your design works with hardware handoff. If you use RTL module referencing, you do not preserve the addressing information. It is important to consider these restrictions early in the design process.
- If you plan to boot the processing subsystem first and then load the PL programming later, include the CIPS/PS Wizard. Also, include the NoC at the top level of your design. Put the PL portion of your design in a block design container (BDC).