Serial Lite III Streaming Intel® FPGA IP User Guide

ID 683330
Date 5/26/2023
Public

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6.1.1. Standard Clocking Mode in Serial Lite III Streaming Intel® FPGA IP Core ( Intel® Stratix® 10 Devices)

In this mode, you are required to provide a user clock to drive the user interface for both source and sink core, and specify the user clock frequency through the parameter editor. The Intel® Quartus® Prime software then automatically determines the required transceiver reference clock from the L-Tile/H-Tile/E-Tile Transceiver Native PHY IP core, provide a list of values for selection and generate a reference clock signal. This reference clock connects to a global clock network that generates a core clock for IP core.

Figure below shows the source and sink variant clocking structure for standard clocking mode in Intel® Stratix® 10 devices.

Figure 16. Standard Clocking Mode Structure in Intel® Stratix® 10 L-tile/H-tile Transceiver Devices
Figure 17. Standard Clocking Mode Structure in Intel® Stratix® 10 E-tile Transceiver Devices
Table 36.   Intel® Stratix® 10 Clocks in Standard Clocking Mode
Clock Name Description
Source
user_clock User-defined. This clock is determined by the required throughput of the user application. For example, if the user interface is 384-bits wide (6 lanes × 64 bit/lane) and the required throughput is 120 Gbps, the user_clock frequency is 312.5 MHz. This is an input clock provided by the user to the IP and should be used to clock the user interface.
Note: Use the same clock source as the tx_pll_ref_clk for zero clock PPM implementation.
tx_serial_clk This clock should toggle at one-half the data rate of the transceiver lane. When you enter the user_clock frequency in the IP parameter editor, the per lane data rate is calculated. Use that value and divided it by two to determine the tx_serial_clk. You are required to instantiate the TX PLL, as shown in the figure above. In the Serial Lite III Streaming design example, an example of the TX PLL (ATX PLL) is generated with the IP core and is configured with the required reference clock and tx_serial_clk.
Note: This signal is not available when you select E-Tile as as the transceiver tile.
tx_clkout This clock is not exposed to the user. The frequency of tx_clkout is the data rate divided by 64.
interface_clock This clock is an internal clock and is not exposed to the user. The frequency of this clock is calculated by the IP parameter editor and is the transceiver data rate divided by transceiver PCS-PMA width ( 64 bits).
Sink
user_clock User-defined. This clock is determined by the required throughput of the user application. For example, if the user interface is 384-bits wide (6 lanes × 64 bit/lane) and the required throughput is 120 Gbps, the user_clock frequency is 312.5 MHz. The frequency of this clock should match the frequency of the user_clock in the Source variant. This is an input clock provided by the user to the IP. This clock should be used to clock the RX user application that drives the RX user interface.
Note: Ensure that this clock is operating at equal or higher frequency than interface_clock to avoid data loss.
xcvr_pll_ref_clk This reference clock is used by the Clock Data Recovery (CDR) unit in the transceiver. It serves as a reference for the CDR to recover the clock from the serial line. The frequency of this clock must match the frequency you select in the IP parameter editor. It should also match the frequency of the tx_pll_ref_clk reference clock for the TX PLL at the Source variant for Intel® Stratix® 10 L-tile/H-tile transceiver devices.
rx_clkout This clock is not exposed to the user. The frequency of rx_clkout is the data rate divided by 64.
interface_clock This clock is an internal clock and is not exposed to the user. The frequency of this clock is calculated by the IP parameter editor and is the transceiver data rate divided by transceiver PCS-PMA width ( 64 bits).

Example of Implementing Specific User Interface Clock Frequency

An application requires the Serial Lite III Streaming Intel FPGA IP core to sustain data rate of 100 Gbps at the user interface.

user_clock (frequency) × number_of_lanes × 64 bits/lane = 100 Gbps

The data rate for Intel® Stratix® 10 H-Tile transceivers is limited to 28 Gbps. Therefore, 100 Gbps / 28 Gbps = 4 (rounding up)

Choosing 4 lanes gives:

user_clock (frequency) = 100 / (4 × 64) = 390 MHz

Choosing 390 MHz as the user_clock, the IP core provides the following values:

Transceiver data rate: 27.456 Gbps

tx_clkout: 27.456 / 64 = 429 MHz

interface_clk: 27.456 / 64 = 429 MHz

tx_serial_clock: 27.456 / 2 = 13.728 MHz