The Vivado IDE tool has a number of loops that are constantly checking for changes to the project.
The checks primarily check for changes to source files and run results files on disk so that the status of the project can be properly displayed.
In addition to the checks that were run in Project Navigator, the Vivado IDE also checks the content of sub-project files (EDK projects, IP cores, Sysgen projects, etc.).
Checking these additional sources in a sub-project can add hundreds of files that are being checked on a constant basis.
Excessive CPU usage has been observed specifically with Vivado projects containing EDK project files.
To turn off tracking of EDK project source files in the Vivado IDE, do the following:
- Close the Vivado project
- Open the following file from the project area in a text editor: backend_fpga\common\ext_code\K325_backend_EDK.ext\EDK_common_proc_backend.bxml
- Search all texts below and replace them with the second text:
- search for: IsTrackable="true"
- replace with: IsTrackable="false"
- Save the file
- Re-open the project in the Vivado GUI and see if your idle CPU usage now drops close to 0%
The checks are only preformed when the GUI is up because the purpose is to provide immediate visual feedback to the user when a source file has changed.
These status checks have been made more efficient in the 2012.3 Vivado.