Chapter 1

Introduction

This chapter describes the graphical interface and the important features and capabilities of the Xilinx Floorplanner. It contains the following sections.

• “What is the Floorplanner?” is a general introduction to the Floorplanner tool.
  
  
• “Floorplanner Icon” shows the icon that appears in the Design Manager window.
  
  
• “Why Floorplan?” explains how the Floorplanner can help you improve the performance and density of your design.
  
  
• “Floorplanning Prerequisites” explains the necessary requirements for successful floorplanning.
  
  
• “Features of the Floorplanner” lists the features provided by the Floorplanner.
  
  
• “Supported Architectures” lists the Xilinx device families that Floorplanner supports.
  
  
• “New Files” describes the two new file types that Floorplanner uses.
  
  
• “Input Files” lists the files that Floorplanner uses as input.
  
  
• “Output Files” lists the files that Floorplanner generates.