ECO Flow Support for DFX Designs - 2025.2 English - UG909

You can use engineering change orders (ECOs) to modify a post-implementation netlist with minimal impact to the original design. The AMD Vivado™ Design Suite includes an ECO flow that lets you open a design checkpoint, make changes, generate reports on the updated netlist, and produce programming files. For more information on basic ECO operations, see the Vivado Design Suite User Guide: Implementation (UG904).

Follow these steps to run the ECO flow:

1. Open a previously implemented design.
2. Modify the netlist using the ECO edit commands.
3. If the design is not fully placed, run the placer in ECO mode with the place_design -eco command.
4. If the design is fully placed and the ECO placer was not previously called, use the finalize_eco command to fix any illegal site configuration.
5. Run the router in ECO mode by using the route_design -eco command.
6. Generate the device image.

In ECO mode, the placer places the unplaced or newly added cells. Keep the scope of your changes to less than 1% of the total cells in the design. New cells are limited to the addition of flip-flops and LUTs.