quartus_pow crash when compiling design

[mgarrison]

I have been working on a design for Cyclone IV GX for quite some time and recently as I built up another tier of the project design, I started getting a crash during project compilation from the quartus_pow tool. It appears as though it's related to the RAM blocks in the design, but all I did in this iteration was add more instances of the same blocks that I already had when the design was compiling fine. I cannot find any information on this or what's causing it. Been using 18.1 (Win 10) but just tried 19.1 with no difference. Help!

Problem Details

Error:

Internal Error: Sub-system: PATFAM, File: /quartus/power/patfam/patfam_atom_calculator.cpp, Line: 3668

CUT_RAM_UTIL::ram_mode_is(ram, port, CDB_RAM_READ_ONLY)

Stack Trace:

  0x36973: PATFAM_ATOM_CALCULATOR::get_ram_read_write_probabilities + 0xd3 (POWER_PATFAM)

  0x33d9c: PATFAM_ATOM_CALCULATOR::calculate_ram_port_energy + 0x40c (POWER_PATFAM)

  0x3c48b: PATFAM_ATOM_CALCULATOR::visit_ram + 0x55b (POWER_PATFAM)

  0x3219c: PATFAM_ATOM_CALCULATOR::calculate_and_store_atom_power + 0x45c (POWER_PATFAM)

   0xfb91: PAT_MAIN::create_and_store_atom_power_data + 0x181 (POWER_PAT)

  0x12348: PAT_MAIN::setup_power_model_info + 0x218 (POWER_PAT)

  0x21d60: PAN_POWER_CALCULATOR::calculate_power + 0x50 (POWER_PAN)

  0x185d4: PAN_MAIN_IMPL::run_flow + 0x234 (POWER_PAN)

  0x32e86: pan_start + 0x26 (POWER_PAN)

   0x4073: QPOW_FRAMEWORK::execute + 0x43 (quartus_pow)

  0x1150c: qexe_do_normal + 0x1ec (comp_qexe)

  0x16622: qexe_run + 0x432 (comp_qexe)

  0x17371: qexe_standard_main + 0xc1 (comp_qexe)

   0x5b0c: qpow_main + 0x6c (quartus_pow)

  0x133a8: msg_main_thread + 0x18 (CCL_MSG)

  0x14bae: msg_thread_wrapper + 0x6e (CCL_MSG)

  0x16af0: mem_thread_wrapper + 0x70 (ccl_mem)

  0x12c41: msg_exe_main + 0xa1 (CCL_MSG)

   0x6782: __tmainCRTStartup + 0x10e (quartus_pow)

  0x17973: BaseThreadInitThunk + 0x13 (KERNEL32)

  0x6a260: RtlUserThreadStart + 0x20 (ntdll)

End-trace

Executable: quartus_pow

Comment:

None

System Information

Platform: windows64

OS name: Windows 10

OS version: 10.0

Quartus Prime Information

Address bits: 64

Version: 19.1.0

Build: 670

Edition: Lite Edition

[KhaiChein_Y_Intel]

Hi,

Can you provide the design QAR for investigation? To create the design QAR file, click on Project > Archive Project > Archive.

Thanks.

Best regards,

KhaiY

[mgarrison]

Is there a way I can provide useful project information without all source files? There is intellectual property in our design that we would not want to share publicly.

[KhaiChein_Y_Intel]

Hi,

I understand that you cannot provide the entire design. You may try to create a small test case that can reproduce the error.

Thanks

Best regards,

KhaiY

[mgarrison]

Hello,

Sorry for delay. I was actually able to solve the problem while I was working on paring down the design to a small test case that I could share. There was a WREN signal into a dual-port RAM that was accidentally not hooked up due to a typo in the signal name (which was very hard to see at a glance). I fixed the error and now the design compiles without the crash. It is strange that I did not notice any warnings about the signal not being connected, and that the result was just a crash in the power analyzer. In any case, it seems that it is working normally now. As it turns out, just being asked to make the small test case to post here was what led to finding the mistake! Thanks.