Honored Contributor
Honored ContributorThis 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.
