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SimonRichter's avatar
SimonRichter
Icon for Occasional Contributor rankOccasional Contributor
4 years ago
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Cyclone V GX, Custom PHY, using fPLL as TX PLL

Hi, I'm trying to get six independent SATA links on a Cyclone V GX with six transceivers, as far as I can see this should be possible. My approach for clocking would be to run all the channel PLL...
  • SimonRichter's avatar
    SimonRichter
    4 years ago

    Okay, I have a valid PLL configuration now: two fPLLs that feed as external PLLs into three transceivers each.

    For reference: the fPLL's output port is not valid as an input clock for a transceiver block if reconfiguration is enabled, because that routes the clock through the per-output C divider to allow reconfiguration to set up a divisor here, this gives an error message that the CLKCDRLOC port on the transceiver is not properly connected. The knowledge base entry for this is incomplete: connecting to outclk_0 only works if PLL reconfiguration is disabled.

    The solution here is to disable reconfiguration for the fPLLs, or enable access to the DPA outputs in the PLL configuration and connect the clock to phout[0], then the design compiles.

Deshi_Intel's avatar
Deshi_Intel
Icon for Regular Contributor rankRegular Contributor
4 years ago

HI Simon,


Pls see my comment below.


I'm trying to get six independent SATA links on a Cyclone V GX with six

transceivers, as far as I can see this should be possible.

  • I am sorry to say but likely it's impossible to fit 6 duplex channel into 6 transceiver channel as CMU PLL itself will consume one of the RX channel
  • You are going to need bigger FPGA device with more transceiver channel
  • Rx channel can only be used either as Rx channel CDR or as CMU PLL


- Can I specify that with the Custom PHY megafunction, or do I need to

go a different path here? Simply configuring a Custom PHY in duplex mode

instantiates one CDR and one CMU PLL per channel, and these fail to

merge afterwards.

  • CustomPHY IP required to use CMU PLL instead of fPLL for clocking Tx channel. So, you can't use fPLL. You need to use CMU PLL instead


- Can I use a single fPLL for all channels, or should I use both (one

for channel 0-2, one for channel 3-5)?

  • You need to use CMU PLL since you are using CustomPHY IP


- If I want to support both 1.5Gbps and 3Gbps, can I divide the serial

clock in the channel, or do I need to set up a separate fPLL and set up

clock distribution accordingly?

  • You need to use 2 PLL


- Can I run the fPLL off the system clock for the rest of the fabric

(generated in a normal PLL), or should I add a separate reference clock

to my board?

  • Sorry, I don't quite understand your question here. Can you elaborate further ?


Thanks.


Regards,

dlim



  • SimonRichter's avatar
    SimonRichter
    Icon for Occasional Contributor rankOccasional Contributor
    4 years ago

    Hi,

    okay, I'm still trying to wrap my head around this.

    Table 2-4 in CV-53002 mentions an x1_fPLL line that goes to three channels each (so I'd have to run both fPLLs with identical settings), and table 2-6 mentions a path for bonded configurations

    fPLL » x1_fPLL » central clock divider » x6 » individual clock divider » serializer

    Both of these sound like I can feed the x1_fPLL line directly into the channel divider, which would free the channel PLL for CDR. Since I don't need bonding mode, I can skip the step where the divider output is then fed back into the x6 network. Each group of three is then limited by the slowest device, but that is probably not a problem in practice.

    I can see that this isn't possible with the Custom PHY, would it help to switch to Native PHY?

    Regarding the clock source for the fPLL, table 2-1 answers my question -- the routing I had in mind would be very jittery, so I'll feed in a high-speed clock via GXB_REFCLK.

    Simon

    • SimonRichter's avatar
      SimonRichter
      Icon for Occasional Contributor rankOccasional Contributor
      4 years ago

      Okay, I have a valid PLL configuration now: two fPLLs that feed as external PLLs into three transceivers each.

      For reference: the fPLL's output port is not valid as an input clock for a transceiver block if reconfiguration is enabled, because that routes the clock through the per-output C divider to allow reconfiguration to set up a divisor here, this gives an error message that the CLKCDRLOC port on the transceiver is not properly connected. The knowledge base entry for this is incomplete: connecting to outclk_0 only works if PLL reconfiguration is disabled.

      The solution here is to disable reconfiguration for the fPLLs, or enable access to the DPA outputs in the PLL configuration and connect the clock to phout[0], then the design compiles.