What's Good about the new "Class" Scope for Match Groups in Constraint Manager?

In the SPB16.01 release, for the Constraint Manager in DEHDL, the is a new scope of "Class" for Match Groups.

This new scope will utilize the “Net Class” signal grouping introduced in 16.0, and allow users to mimic the capability of Bus Scope with this new arbitrary grouping. It will operate as Bus Scope does today, i.e. it is limited to ECSets, and is only used during the ECSet mapping process, creating distinct Match Groups (MG's) for objects in different Classes. Class Scope differs from Bus Scope in that the arbitrary signal grouping can be more flexible, and cover cases not handled by Bus Scope.

Use model example for Class Scope
Multiple Nets organized into several classes. Pin pairs must match but only to nets within the same class. All nets need not share the same topology.

One or more ECSets with class scope can be applied to all of the nets and will create MG names based on the class name (eg MG1_CLASS1, MG1_CLASS2, etc). This scope is a natural extension to the Bus scope. It can also be used to cut down on the number of ECSets by using a single ECSet to create multiple MG's.

A class can contain multiple buses and scalar nets (such as control signals), and since Electrical class names are local by default, they can be used in hierarchical designs. An Electrical class can be a block specific arbitrary collection mechanism.

Implementation issues
Because of potential issues in a mixed release environment – e.g. a 16.01 Front End with a 15.7 Back End, you need to understand that the Constraint Manager Enabled flow requires the same release across the FrontEnd/BackEnd flow.

Jerry GenPart