Stratix II GX Transceivers

Hello, I'm looking to do a design involving data rates near 4Gbps and
was looking at using Altera's Stratix II GX transceivers to drive the
data to a 4Gbps single-mode fiber-optic transceiver. I'm interested in
how well the Stratix can perform this task, if anyone has some
experience using the transceivers could you please let me know how well
it worked for you? I've read the Altera's web site on the Stratix II GX
and it sounds very promising, I just want to make sure that is does
what it says it can.

thanks,
joe

Hi Joe,

> Hello, I'm looking to do a design involving data rates near 4Gbps and
> was looking at using Altera's Stratix II GX transceivers to drive the
> data to a 4Gbps single-mode fiber-optic transceiver. I'm interested in
> how well the Stratix can perform this task, if anyone has some
> experience using the transceivers could you please let me know how well
> it worked for you? I've read the Altera's web site on the Stratix II GX
> and it sounds very promising, I just want to make sure that is does
> what it says it can.

I've been toying around with Altera's own Signal Integrity board, and 6GBps
over 40" of trace plus 2ft of copper interconnect through SMAs works just
fine. 4GBPS over optic should be relatively easy.

Feed the GX 100MHz of clock, put the PLLs into 40x, set the ALTGXB
transceiver interface to double-width mode (200MHz is workable in the core,
400MHz is really, really stressing things), and as long as you properly do
your power decoupling and PCB layout you should have a working design. You
may need to tweak the pre-emphasis and/or equalization settings a bit to
get the best results, but so far the transceivers seem to be rock-solid.

Best regards,


Ben


Best to contact your local (disti) FAE to provide you with the reference
schematic and board layout files of the SI board for reference.

Hello, and thanks for responding to my post. Quick question, did you
have to pay for any IP to use the transceivers or is it free?

thanks,
joe

Ben Twijnstra wrote:
> Hi Joe,
>
> > Hello, I'm looking to do a design involving data rates near 4Gbps and
> > was looking at using Altera's Stratix II GX transceivers to drive the
> > data to a 4Gbps single-mode fiber-optic transceiver. I'm interested in
> > how well the Stratix can perform this task, if anyone has some
> > experience using the transceivers could you please let me know how well
> > it worked for you? I've read the Altera's web site on the Stratix II GX
> > and it sounds very promising, I just want to make sure that is does
> > what it says it can.
>
> I've been toying around with Altera's own Signal Integrity board, and 6GBps
> over 40" of trace plus 2ft of copper interconnect through SMAs works just
> fine. 4GBPS over optic should be relatively easy.
>
> Feed the GX 100MHz of clock, put the PLLs into 40x, set the ALTGXB
> transceiver interface to double-width mode (200MHz is workable in the core,
> 400MHz is really, really stressing things), and as long as you properly do
> your power decoupling and PCB layout you should have a working design. You
> may need to tweak the pre-emphasis and/or equalization settings a bit to
> get the best results, but so far the transceivers seem to be rock-solid.
>
> Best regards,
>
>
> Ben
>
>
> Best to contact your local (disti) FAE to provide you with the reference
> schematic and board layout files of the SI board for reference.

Hi, say would I use the SerialLite II megafunction to drive my data out
of the FPGA to my fiber-optic transceiver? I'm not doing SONET or ATM
or any particular protocol. The fiber-optic transceiver I plan to use
is PECL or CML.

joe


Ben Twijnstra wrote:
> Hi Joe,
>
> > Hello, I'm looking to do a design involving data rates near 4Gbps and
> > was looking at using Altera's Stratix II GX transceivers to drive the
> > data to a 4Gbps single-mode fiber-optic transceiver. I'm interested in
> > how well the Stratix can perform this task, if anyone has some
> > experience using the transceivers could you please let me know how well
> > it worked for you? I've read the Altera's web site on the Stratix II GX
> > and it sounds very promising, I just want to make sure that is does
> > what it says it can.
>
> I've been toying around with Altera's own Signal Integrity board, and 6GBps
> over 40" of trace plus 2ft of copper interconnect through SMAs works just
> fine. 4GBPS over optic should be relatively easy.
>
> Feed the GX 100MHz of clock, put the PLLs into 40x, set the ALTGXB
> transceiver interface to double-width mode (200MHz is workable in the core,
> 400MHz is really, really stressing things), and as long as you properly do
> your power decoupling and PCB layout you should have a working design. You
> may need to tweak the pre-emphasis and/or equalization settings a bit to
> get the best results, but so far the transceivers seem to be rock-solid.
>
> Best regards,
>
>
> Ben
>
>
> Best to contact your local (disti) FAE to provide you with the reference
> schematic and board layout files of the SI board for reference.