CameraLink with Cyclone IV GX

Thanks ted. Yes, using ALTLVDS would be simpler, it's the "obvious limitations of the I/O pin capabilities" I'm worried about. CameraLink at 85Mhz requires an I/O toggle rate of ~298Mhz. The Cyclone IV I7 device specifies a max toggle rate of 370Mhz for true LVDS, I guess this is OK. The output jitter is 500ps p-p max, which is about 30% of UI. This seems like a lot, maybe OK.

I also have to consider adding LVDS buffers to the FPGA to protect it from the "outside world". Given that, I might as well just use a CameraLink transmitter chip (DS90CR287) and save myself the FPGA coding. The GX outputs seemed like an elegant solution to all the above, plus I gets some extra features like programmable output level and pre-emphasis. These are the tradeoffs I'm struggling with at the moment.