Tracing timing violations in the post-p&r generated netlist can be cumbersome with all signal merging/renaming and inserted buffer. I was wondering if there is a way that I can back annotate the post place and route delays back to the RTL code? even approximate delays can reveal some design errors I would think.
Thank you.
You don't seem to understand the processing from RTL to gates. When you do the answer will become self-evident.
It would be great wouldn't it?
The main problem seems to be that there are at least two, and sometimes three or more tools in the chain between RTL and placed & routed gates. Tracing the heritage of gates back to RTL requires that all of those tools cooperate in providing the necessary information in a uniform manner. Often there is no direct heritage, given re-timing and pipelining optimizations. Also, the RTL may have "hidden" some of the gates in expressions or variables that cannot be directly annotated with delays without major re-writing of the code.
I have found that if I do a good job simulating the RTL, and verifying the constraints used for STA, the set of problems encountered during full timing simulation is very limited.
Andy
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