Latches
If you do not assign an output for all possible conditions in an if or
case statement (that is, incomplete assignment), the software
infers a latch. Trion®, Topaz, and Titanium
FPGAs do not support latches natively in hardware. The Efinity® synthesis tool infers look-up tables (LUTs) to provide latch
behaviour.
Because latches are turned into LUTs, they can use up resources you could be using for something else. So you want to avoid them when possible.