Arria® V Device Handbook: Volume 2: Transceivers

ID 683573
Date 5/29/2020
Public
Document Table of Contents

6.6.4.1. 10G PCS Datapath Functionality

Various 10G PCS blocks are available when you implement the 10G PCS in low latency mode.

Transmitter and Receiver FIFO

The FIFOs can be configured in phase compensation or registered mode for the RX path. In phase compensation mode, the FIFO compensates the phase differences in the clock between the read and write side of the FIFO. The clocking scheme for the write side of the transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX) FIFOs depends on whether the gear box is enabled and on its ratio (40:66, 40:50, or 32:64). The clocking scheme is described in Clocking.

Figure 217. Phase Compensation FIFO in RX Path


Gear Box

The gear box translates the datapath width differences between the PCS and the physical medium attachment (PMA) interfaces. The gear box contains handshake control logic and FIFOs to implement the data-width translation. For the supported gear box ratio, refer to figure "Options for 10G PCS Low Latency Configuration".

TX Bit Slip Feature

The bit slip feature allows you to slip the transmitter side bits before they are sent to the gear box. The number of bits slipped is equal to the FPGA fabric-to-transceiver interface width minus 1. For example, if the FPGA fabric-to-transceiver interface width is 64 bits, a maximum of 63 bits can be slipped. That is, bit[63] from the first word and bit[62:0] are concatenated to form a 64 bit word (bit[62:0] from the second word, bit[63] from the first word LSB). The 7-bit input control signal is available to the FPGA fabric. For a 63-bit shift mentioned above, set the value of the input control to 7'b0011111.

Clocking

The transceiver datapath clocking scheme depends on the gear box ratio.

When the gear box ratio is 64:64, 40:40, or 32:32, there is no frequency difference between the read and write side of the TX and RX FIFO clocks because the gear box is the same ratio. The Quartus II software automatically connects the clocks to the read and write side of the TX FIFO and RX FIFO. In this configuration, the data from the TX FIFO is still fed to the gear box before being sent to the serializer. The gear box cannot be bypassed or disabled.

Figure 218. 10G PCS Low Latency Datapath with Gear Box in 64:64, 40:40, and 32:32 Ratio


When the gear box ratio is 64:32. The FPGA fabric interface width (64 bits) is exactly twice the internal transceiver datapath width. You can divide the tx_clkout and rx_clkout in the FPGA fabric by two, and use them to clock the write side of TX FIFO and the read side of RX FIFO, respectively. Select the tx_coreclkin and the rx_coreclkin ports in the Low Latency PHY IP core and connect the divided clock to these ports.

Figure 219. 10G PCS Low Latency Datapath with the Gear Box Ratio of 64:32


When the gear box ratio is 66:40, the rx_clkout parallel clock provided is a recovered clock coming from the CDR with a divided-by-66 output frequency.

The tx_clkout parallel clock is generated from the transmit PLL feeding a fractional PLL that is automatically instantiated from the FPGA core with a divided-by-66 output frequency.

Figure 220. 10G PCS Low Latency Datapath with the Gear Box Ratio of 66:40


When the gear box ratio is not an integral multiple of the FPGA fabric interface width (for example, 50:40), you must instantiate a fractional PLL to provide the appropriate clock frequency to the write side of the TX FIFO. Set the division factor in the fractional PLL so that its output frequency is equal to the transmitter or lane data rate divided by 50 for the 50:40 gear box ratio. The clock source that provides the input reference clock to the fractional PLL and the CMU or ATX transmit PLL must be the same because the TX FIFO operates as a phase compensation FIFO, unlike a clock compensation or rate match FIFO. Therefore, the clock requires a zero ppm between the read and write operations.

For the receiver side, enable the rx_coreclkin port and connect a second fractional PLL output to the rx_coreclkin port. The RX FIFO operates as a phase compensation FIFO. Therefore, the read and write side of the RX FIFO must have a zero ppm difference.

Figure 221. 10G PCS Low Latency Datapath with the Gear Box Ratio of 50:40