V-Series Transceiver PHY IP Core User Guide

ID 683171
Date 7/26/2022
Public
Document Table of Contents

4.9. Forward Error Correction (Clause 74)

The optional Forward Error Correction (FEC) function is defined in Clause 74 of IEEE 802.3ap-2007. It provides an error detection and correction mechanism allowing noisy channels to achieve the Ethernet-mandated Bit Error Rate (BER) of 10-12 .
The following figure illustrates the interface between the FEC, PCS and PMA modules as defined in IEEE802.3ap-2007.
Figure 23. FEC Functional Block Diagram
The FEC capability is encoded in the FEC Ability and FEC Requested bits of the base Link Codeword. It is transmitted within a Differential Manchester Encoded page during Auto Negotiation. The link enables the FEC function if the link partners meet the following conditions:
  • Both partners advertise the FEC Ability
  • At least one partner requests FEC
Note: If neither device requests FEC, FEC is not enabled even if both devices have the FEC Ability.
The TX FEC encoder (2112, 2080) creates 2112-bit FEC blocks or codewords from 32, 64B/66B encoded and scrambled 10GBASE-R words. It compresses the 32, 66-bit words into 32, 65-bit words and generates 32-bit parity using the following polynomial:
g(x) = x32 +  x23 + x21 + x11 + x2 + 1 
Parity is appended to the encoded data. The receiving device can use parity to detect and correct burst errors of up to 11 bits. The FEC encoder preserves the standard 10GBASE-KR line rate of 10.3125 Gbps by compressing the 32 sync bits from 64B/66B words. The TX FEC module is clocked at 161.1 MHz.
Figure 24. FEC Codeword Format

Error detection and correction consists of calculating the syndrome of the received codeword. The syndrome is the remainder from the polynomial division of the received codeword by g(x). If the syndrome is zero, the codeword is correct. If the syndrome is non-zero, you can use it to determine the most likely error.

Figure 25. Codewords, Parity and Syndromes

TX FEC Module Scrambler

In addition to the TX FEC encoder, the TX FEC module includes the following functions:

  • FEC Scrambler: The FEC scrambler scrambles the encoded output. The polynomial used to scramble the encoded output ensures DC balance to facilitate block synchronization at the receiver. It is shown below.
    X = x58+ X 39 + 1
  • FEC Gearbox: The FEC gearbox adapts the FEC data width to the smaller bus width of the interface to the PCS. It supports a special 65:64 gearbox ratio.

RX FEC Module

The RX FEC module is clocked at 161.1 MHz. It includes the following functions:
  • FEC Block Synchronizer: The FEC block synchronizer achieves FEC block delineation by locking to correctly received FEC blocks. An algorithm with hysteresis maintains block and word delineation.
  • FEC Descrambler: The FEC descrambler descrambles the received data to regenerate unscrambled data utilizing the original FEC scrambler polynomial.
  • FEC Decoder:The FEC decoder performs the (2112, 2080) decoding by analyzing the received FEC block for errors. It can correct burst errors of 11 bits per FEC block. The FEC receive gearbox adapts the data width to the larger bus width of the PCS channel. It supports a 64:65 ratio.
  • FEC Transcode Decoder: The FEC transcode decoder performs 65-bit to 64B/66B reconstruction by regenerating the 64B/66B sync header.