Optical FPGAs

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I am interested in optical FPGAs.

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Good luck with that, they don't yet exist :)

FPGAs can be used to implement optical interfaces. The most common technique is that you route the CML-logic transceiver lanes to SFP+ (small form-factor pluggable) or QSFP+ (quad version) connectors, and then plug in either direct attach copper cables for short runs (<5m) or optical cables for longer runs (10m to many km).

Altera has some public-relations photos of an FPGA with Avago optical modules mounted on the corner of the FPGA. This is not yet a real product though (as far as I have seen).

The FPGAs you are interested in are the devices with transceiver lanes. For testing you ideally want devices with an embedded eye-pattern monitor, i.e., the Arria V GZ devices or the Stratix V series devices.

What are you interested in testing?

Cheers,

Dave

Thank you!

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Good luck with that, they don't yet exist :)

I found this information: http://www.altera.com/corporate/about_us/history/optical/abt-optical-interconnects.html

and that isn't just now published.

Right now I am just doing a research on FPGA optical interface options.

But did I get it right, the optical FPGA (not produced yet) idea was that it is just an outside package and the core could be any kind of FPGA series?

Evita

Optical part of the FPGA is just an interface, it is like having a "normal" FPGA with oprical transciver built-in. The inovation here is that they have managed to build FPGA and optical transicever on same silicon die.

If I recall correctly, HP will be using same technology for their The Machine supercomputer.

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I found this information: http://www.altera.com/corporate/about_us/history/optical/abt-optical-interconnects.html

and that isn't just now published.

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Right. This is marketing hype. These parts do not exist yet. And even when they do, they are not "Optical FPGAs", they are silicon devices with electrical-to-optical converters integrated in the same package as the FPGA.

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Right now I am just doing a research on FPGA optical interface options.

But did I get it right, the optical FPGA (not produced yet) idea was that it is just an outside package and the core could be any kind of FPGA series?

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There are many types of optical interfaces, eg., an IR remote control is optical, and that can be created with any FPGA.

If you are specifically interested in high-speed optical interfaces, i.e., 10Gbps/40Gbps/100Gbps operating with lane rates of at least 10Gbps, then the "standard" interfaces and FPGAs that support those interfaces are as I have mentioned above. The recently announced Stratix/Arria/Cyclone 10 series devices will have some devices that also support these interfaces.

Cheers,

Dave