Example designs for communicating two Altera boards

Thanks Dave very much for your time and very detailed explanation.

Let me describe briefly my final application. I am going to build a 10Gbps Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) system where one FPGA will play a role as a center office device (OLT) and several other FPGAs will be customer premises (ONU). The boards will interface SFP+ modules. The design will consist of a physical layer protocol (probably by using Altera 10GBASE-R IP core) and my own implementation of MAC protocol (probably by modifying Altera 10GbE MAC IP core). The MAC for OLT device is different from that for ONUs.

Therefore, I am trying to have physical layer first. I studied the Altera XCVR PHY IP Core User Guide and XCVR Architecture in Stratix IV manual. Then I tested the provided On-chip XCVR debugging examples in harware (not yet in Modelsim). However, 10GBASE-R is provided by Altera without a similar example for testing in hardware, so I tried to create that in Qsys with Avalon ultilities. With some knowledge from reading specs and Qsys, I though/hoped that I would create a complete 10GBASE-R design, then simulate it in Modelsim as well as test it on harware.

I hoped that this top-down approach would help me understand the overview of my design more quickly. Moreover, as the PHY layer is provided as IP core, I do not really want to spend much time for this. I just want to know how to test this in hardware and know how to interface this with the other components in my final design. The major part of my project is to design the customized MAC sublayer. That is why I am doing things in reverse.

I don't know if I am right when choosing this approach. Please give me some advice or/and suggest me better way(s) to reach my target application. For sure, to have a better understanding, I will learn to designs by configuring the ALTGX, RECONFIG,...like you recommended and learn to simulate in Modelsim. Also, I will learn to work with the SignalTap II and synthesizer soon.

Again, thank you very much and look forward to your further advice.