What's the meaning of partition for incremental compile

[Altera_Forum]

In the material named Fast Path to Your Design published by ALTERA,what is the meaning of partition in Compare Full compile and incremental compile setion?There is a clip image as attachment. 

What need to do for incremental compile in Quartus II V11.0?   Thank you in advance. Fangkun Wei

[Altera_Forum]

Partitioning allows the user to identify related sub-segments or hierarchies of the design and if nothing has changed in that sub-segment, it allows the compiler to re-use the previous results down to the routing if you specify it. 

 This allows the compilation to work much faster, however can have some negative side effects if done improperly.  It works best when you have a large design that you are only working on a small piece of the hierarchy.  Pete

[Altera_Forum]

Thanks to Pete. 

 I know about the function of partition,what pulzzed me is how to realize partitions in design.Does it mean using Logic Lock,a Lock Area is a partition?Or a module is a partition?   I am from china,my english is not good,so I am not sure you weather understand what I said.   Thanks in advance. Fangkun Wei

[Altera_Forum]

You've to run an analisys and elaboration (at least) and then right click on the block (that are the entities you've defined in your project) and set them as partition. 

 In any case, Quartus II Handbook describes it, expecially here: http://www.altera.com/literature/hb/qts/qts_qii51015.pdf  Hope it helps.

[Altera_Forum]

Thank you every much! 

I've understand it by reading white paper from altera and help in Quartus II software.