General Description: I am attempting to instantiate any of the following Spartan-II primitives: STARTUP_SPARTAN2, BSCAN_SPARTAN2 or CAPTURE_SPARTAN2. However, when I attempt the instantiation, the following warning messages are reported in FPGA Express:
"Warning: Cannot link cell 'spartan2_primitives/u1' to its reference design 'startup_spartan2'. (FPGA-LINK-2) Warning: Cannot link cell 'spartan2_primitives/u2' to its reference design 'bscan_spartan2'. (FPGA-LINK-2) Warning: Cannot link cell 'spartan2_primitives/u3' to its reference design 'capture_spartan2'. (FPGA-LINK-2) Warning: The cell '/spartan2_primitives/u1' is not linked to any design. (FPGA-CHECK-4) Warning: The cell '/spartan2_primitives/u2' is not linked to any design. (FPGA-CHECK-4) Warning: The cell '/spartan2_primitives/u3' is not linked to any design. (FPGA-CHECK-4)"
In spite of these warnings, the resulting netlist runs through the implementation tools without error.
Solution
The HDL code does not need to be modified. However, if you instantiate the Virtex counterparts of these primitives (STARTUP_VIRTEX, etc.), FPGA Express will not issue the warning messages, and the netlist will run through the implementation tools without any errors.