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I read your messages, but am still confused.
First of all, I'm not trying to make one experimental device. I'm trying to design a product. Yes, a fairly specialized low volume product (only hundreds or at most thousands per year), but a product nonetheless. I'm a self-employed design engineer, but I expect to spend $25K to $100K developing this product. If I must spend $20K for IP, than I must. But I hope to avoid that if possible.
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I meant not experimental device, but prototyping device. I'm also design engineer and from my point of view I would't start such a big project not before prototyping.
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If I read correctly, you want me to put a 10Ge PCIe card designed for PCs inside my camera. Yikes! I looked at the PCIe cards you mentioned, and they're fairly huge. While the camera doesn't need to be super tiny, what you propose is much larger than my plans.
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I understand, sorry I mixed up 10Gbit camera with IP-Camera.
For further explanations I have to say, that I'm not a guru regards 1Gbit or 10Gbit
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My 1Ge camera contains no ethernet MAC. The FPGA takes image data directly from the sensor, puts that into ethernet packets, sets the various ethernet packet fields, then outputs them into a 1Ge Marvell 88e1111 ethernet PHY, which outputs the signals to the RJ45 connector (with integrated "magnetics").
No need for ethernet MAC.
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Okay, I understand.
I would start with this:
https://www.altera.com/products/boards_and_kits/dev-kits/altera/arria-10-soc-development-kit.html Also look at this:
http://wl.altera.com/products/ip/iup/ethernet/m-alt-10gbase-r-pcs.html IP-10GBASERPCS
http://eu.mouser.com/productdetail/altera/ip-10gbaserpcs/?qs=%2fha2pyfadujzlubt178%252bxkkstpwuqcbgtkq5ykydy6xfuqf9ukf%252buw%3d%3d Then you need some fancy SFP+ module.
Till here you don't need to make a PCB, you can make your setup with some generated image/video and stream it to other PC or second Dev-Kit with SFP+ module.
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BTW, since the above scheme doesn't have any CPU/processor involved in the process, there are no "device drivers" to write. I guess that's one man year of software saved! :-)
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Good point! :-D
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The big question is. Is it really easier and/or cheaper to add the eMAC chip so the FPGA i/o is PCIe instead of XAUI ????
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I have no idea
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# 1: no need for IP (or a bunch of work) to implement XAUI.
# 2: no need for high-speed transceivers for FPGA <<===>> PHY.
I worry
very much about the cost of high-speed transceivers on the FPGA!
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Yes, probably you will need a costly high-speed FPGA, like Arria 10.
I sum up:
ARRIA 10 $900
SFP+ Module $300 (just a placeholder)
IP-Core $50 ($5000 / 100 pcs)
PCB $500 (just a random number)
Other components: $200
So, you are at $1950 per board -- without the sensor, without other things... So let it be $4000 per camera (with development).
I don't think you can use some Cyclone V FPGA for $100.
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Note that many of the image sensors have the HiSpi interface, which is an LVDS interface with 4 data lines and 1 clock line (albeit only one direction... from image sensor to FPGA).
What worries me is the number of high-speed transceivers I will need on the FPGA, because the FPGA cost rises
very fast when you need more transceivers. A whole slew of GPIO signals is cheaper than more high-speed transceivers. That's one major reason I have been hoping I can find a 10Ge PHY that supports the XGMII interface. That's a boatload of GPIO signals (72 == 36 inputs and 36 outputs), but they only need to support 320Mbps DDR == 160MHz i/o (which I sure hope is supported by cycloneV). Am I right about that? Does cycloneV GPIO support 320Mbps DDR ???
One consideration here is this. If we need high-speed transceivers for the image sensor (5 for HiSpi) and high-speed transceivers for XAUI (not sure if 4 for each direction or 4 transceivers), the number of high-speed transceivers is huge. In fact, I'm not sure the cycloneV even has enough high-speed transceivers in the largest parts for this! I see they have 6 or 9 high-speed transceivers, but apparently sometimes (some interfaces) an extra one is consumed for some magic reason).
Do you know? What's you take on this issue?
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You can handle it with Arria 10 without a problem, but I don't think you can use a Cyclone 5.
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Now that I've explained better, please update your advice.
And thanks a lot, this brainstorming helps!
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Resolution of the sensor? 4K60? Can you use a SDI? 12G-SDI? Image -> FPGA -> Hi-Speed-link -> Cable-Driver -> BNC Cable -> Blackmagic DeckLink 4K PCIe card...
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