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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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16 years ago

Advice about industrial bus for 3,7 Gbps transfers

Dear all,

I need to make transfers PC-FPGA based system and need to select a bus for industrial environment. I was considering to use 10 Gpbs Ethernet or 3.0 USB but I am not sure this is the best way. Optical links can be the solution but I never used this kind of links.

By the way I would like to solve the problem with an IP ready for SOPC. I never purchased an IP and I don´t know the price range of it.

What do you think about? Any idea about the price range of an IP for such this transfer speed rate?

Thank you very much

4 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    16 years ago

    This is gonna be expensive, because at some point you need to use a protocols that PC use and that will require some expensive IP

    AFAIK, here are your more realistic options.

    1. 10 GbE.

    You'll need an off-the-shelf 10 GbE card and a 10 GbE core.

    However, the PC's CPU may have trouble with keeping up with raw 10 GbE (too many small packets) and you may need to add a TCP/IP core in the FPGA to take advantage of the TCP Offload Engine that the 10 GbE card will certainly have.

    2. Infinband

    Like 10 GbE, you'll need a off-the-shelf Infiniband card and a Infiniband IP. Unlike 10 GbE, you won't need a TCP/IP core or nothing of the sorts.

    Be carefull: Infiniband's interoperability between diferent OEMs isn't always the best.

    3. PCIe over fiber

    There are -- although I can't find the links right now -- some PCIe over fiber-optic bridges.

    You'll need a couple of those off-the-shelf bridges and a PCIe IP core.

    This will make your FPGA look like it's directly connected to the PC's PCIe tree.

    Not terribly sure this is a good idea though!

    4. SeriaLite II

    Since there aren't -- AFAIK -- off-the-shelf SeriaLite II cards, you'll need a PCIe FPGA devkit with optical links, SeriaLite II IP core and a PCI/PCI-X/PCIe IP core.

    Despite requiring 2 IP cores, it may be the best option.

    I'm not terribly familiar with prices but 10-20K USD, maybe more.

    But you'll need to contact an Altera representative for that.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    16 years ago

    Thank you very much for the quick answer.

    I´m starting to panic as far as I only can spend 6k on IP cores...

    What do you think about USB 3.0?
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    16 years ago

    Might be a good option as well, but I'm not familiar with it.

    You may (or not) have problems getting the full 3.6 Gbit/s out of USB 3.0.

    In any case, I might be a bit off in regard for prices, so try and get some quotes before you panic. :)

    BTW, some of Xilinx's Virtex5 and Virtex6 include a PCIe 1.1 endpoint for free. Maybe these are more expensive FPGA than you were planning to use but you might want to check out prices for a Xilinx based solution as well.

    Xilinx's equivalent to SeriaLite II is Aurora.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    16 years ago

    You can use PCIe embedded core and low cost FPGA to communicate using PCIe over fiber at 2.5 Gb/s (205 MB/s device to PC benchmark) or 5 Gb/s using PCIe Gen2 (Stratix-IV).

    Using multiple PCIe lanes you can communicate over fiber optic up to x4/x8 lanes.

    To do so you need a Host controller similar to Adnaco-H1 and just place fiber optic transceivers on your board similar to Adnaco-RFPGA

    Coming soon an Adnaco-H1A which support PCIe Gen2 (5 Gb/s) industrial temperature grade and Adnaco-H2 for x4 lanes.

    Details you can find on adnaco web site.

    Sergej