Example designs for communicating two Altera boards

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The external PHY is the chip on that HSMC board. If you look at the price of a GX FPGA plus the external PHY, you'll find that it is less than the price of a GT FPGA. However, the board layout will then need more chips, so you need to figure out what is the cost effective solution for your final design.

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Now I got the point, actually this answers my wonder before that why SIV GX board is much cheaper then the SIV GT Transceiver SI board.

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The GT boards have 10Gbps transceivers, so they do not need the external PHY.

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So, the SFP+ optical module will connect directly to SMA connector? Sorry if this is a lazy question:(

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The kit does have a 1000Mbit PHY, so that is about all you can use.

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Do you mean that data is transmitted from host PC to device via Ethernet PHY interface, then stored in on-chip memory/buffer before being sent out? If so, the real data rate is 1000Mbps as maximum, instead of 10Gbps?

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The other option would be to build a board that interfaces to the FCI Airmax VS connectors, but you'd need to check the hardware design to see if the PCIe hard-IP was available on those transceivers. If it was, then you could build a x1 PCIe breakout cable, and then connect to the board using one of the adapters from OneStopSystems:

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I have checked and the PCIe hard IP is available on ST IV. I will learn this solution later. Can you provide some related material/tutorial.

Thanks!

Best,

PLMT.