Controlling and Monitoring Transceiver Channels

The Transceiver Toolkit allows you to control and monitor the performance of high-speed serial links running on your board in real-time. You can identify the transceiver links in your design, transmit a data pattern across the transceiver link, and report the signal quality of the received data in terms of bit error rate, bathtub curve, or EyeQ graph for supported device families.

The toolkit automatically identifies the transceiver links in your design, or you can manually create transceiver links. You can then run auto sweep to help you quickly identify the best physical media attachment (PMA) settings for each link. You can directly control the transmitter/receiver channels to experiment with various settings suggested by auto sweep. The EyeQ graph allows you to visualize the estimated horizontal and vertical (Arria V, Cyclone V, Stratix V) eye opening at the receiver.

The Transceiver Toolkit supports various transceiver link testing configurations. You can identify and test the transceiver link between two Altera devices, or you can transmit a test pattern with a third-party device and monitor the data on an Altera device receiver channel. If a third-party chip includes self-test capability, then you can send the test pattern from the Altera device and monitor the signal integrity at the third-party device receiver channel. If the third-party device supports reverse serial loopback, you can run the test entirely within the Transceiver Toolkit.

Click the Transceiver Links tab of the Transceiver Toolkit.
Click Transceiver Auto Sweep.
To run an auto sweep test, for Test mode select Auto sweep to run all combinations of tests meeting the physical medium attachment (PMA) parameter limits chosen.

On the Test Pattern list, choose the pattern you want to run.
On the Run Length settings, specify the test parameters you want to run.

Specify Transmitter or Receiver Settings to control receiver settings during auto sweep tests.

Click Start, Stop, or Reset to control the progress of the auto sweep.
Click Create Report to create a report of the settings and auto sweep results in table format.
Turn on Enable serial loopback to turn on serial loopback. This option is available only when the link you are testing is created automatically and appears in the Transceiver Toolkit window in italics.

\To control transceiver channels, follow these steps:

Click either the Receiver Channels or Transmitter Channels tab on the Transceiver Toolkit.
Click either Control Receiver Channel or Control Transmitter Channel.
On the Basic panel, make any desired changes to modify physical media attachment (PMA) settings during run time.
Click Start, Stop, or Reset to control the basic test.
Click receiver or transceiver Auto Sweep or EyeQ to control and run auto sweep or EyeQ channel tests.

To control transceiver links, follow these steps:

Click the Transceiver Links tab in the Transceiver Toolkit.
Click Control Transceiver Link.
On the Basic panel, enter or modify link settings.
Click Auto Sweep to examine or modify received channels or transceiver links.
Click receiver or transceiver Auto Sweep or EyeQ to control and run auto sweep or EyeQ channel tests.

Select a Transceiver Link or a Receiver Channel in the main Transceiver Toolkit panel that you want to monitor with Transceiver EyeQ.
Click Transceiver EyeQ.
Review the test conditions and set them to your preference. You can use Transceiver Auto Sweep to help determine an acceptable setting against which to run Transceiver EyeQ.
Under EyeQ settings, specify options for the test run. You can generate an Eye contour or Bathtub curve according your settings.
Click Start, which allows Transceiver EyeQ to gather current settings of the channel and use those settings to start a phase sweep. The phase sweep runs 32 iterations.
As the run progresses, view the status under EyeQ status. When the run completes the chart is displayed and the characteristics of each run are listed in the run list.
To change PMA settings and re-run Transceiver EyeQ, you must stop, reset, and restart Transceiver EyeQ.
Click Create Report to export data to a table format for further viewing.

s	Note: Transceiver links are identified automatically when a receiver and transmitter share the same channel. You can manually create other channels. The color of the transceiver link indicates the link status.

To automatically identify transceiver channels in your design, follow these steps:
1. Program an Altera FPGA with your transceiver design.
2. On the Quartus II Tools menu, click Transceiver Toolkit. The toolkit automatically identifies transceiver channels in the current design. Click Load Design on the Tools menu to manually load a design.
(Optional) To manually create transceiver channels, follow these steps:
1. In the Transceiver Toolkit, click the Transmitter Channels, or Receiver Channels.tab
2. Specify an alias for the new transmitter or receiver channel.
3. For transmitter channels, specify the Generator path.
4. For receiver channels, specify the Checker path.
5. In the Transceiver path box, specify a transceiver path.
6. In the Reconfig path box, specify a reconfiguration path. System Console creates a virtual file system that you can browse to in the System Explorer pane
Note: The transceiver path may be slightly different, depending on which version of the Quartus II software you used to create your design.
1. Assign a number to the channel you create in the Logical channel address box. The number you assign must match the number you assigned when you first created the transceiver design.
2. Click Create Transmitter Channel or Create Receiver Channel.
(Optional) To manually create transceiver links that have different transmit and receive channels, follow these steps:
1. Click the Transceiver Links tab of the Transceiver Toolkit.
1. Assign an alias to the link you create by typing text in the Transceiver link alias box.
2. Specify a transmitter path name by selecting a path name in the Transmitter channel box.
3. Specify a receiver path name by selecting a path name in the Receiver channel box.
4. Click Create Transceiver Link to add the new transceiver link.