This being my first summer in Las Vegas, it is the first time I’ve experienced the rainy, desert monsoon season and the powerful flash floods it can bring. Last week one of those monsoons, powered by the remnants of Hurricane Norbert, produced floodwaters so strong they completely washed out a section of the I-15 Interstate north of town. With no road for several days, those traveling to and from Utah were forced to take a long detour, winding through nearby towns and wasting precious travel time.
An effective CDC solution for design rule checking can work much the same way, like a straight, clearly marked highway that quickly delivers you directly to your destination. Without such a solution, detouring past the many CDC issues that are becoming more pervasive in FPGA design can quickly become a long, winding road – and an inefficient use of time and resources. I covered some of these CDC nightmares in a previous article, and in this post I’ll share some best practices to help avoid these roadblocks. I’ll also demonstrate how new CDC rule plugins (to be added later this year to ALINT™) can help in the mitigation of such issues.