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shashwatss's avatar
shashwatss
Icon for New Contributor rankNew Contributor
2 months ago
Solved

Agilex-5 supported Transceivers

I am currently evaluating the capabilities of the Altera Dev Board DK-A5E065AB32AEA. As most SFP+ and QSFP+ Transceivers are often vendor-locked, is there a list of qualified Transceivers available?...
Transceiver
  • cblixt1's avatar
    cblixt1
    1 month ago

    It will not work that way. The test with external loopback assumes that you have attached a loopback plug to either QSFP0 or QSFP1, looping back TX to RX for each lane internally within the QSFP chosen. You have looped back QSFP0 to QSFP1. You have to get a loopback plug or you can only use internal loopback with this test.

umut_arrow's avatar
umut_arrow
Icon for Occasional Contributor rankOccasional Contributor
2 months ago

Hi,

I believe the SFP+/QSFP+ cages are not vendor-locked, but unfortunately I can't see a qualified transceiver modules.

Looking at the Intel E10GSFPSR, it's a fixed 10G-only module. The 065A Premium devkit has an Agilex 5 E-series Group A device, and its ports are spec'd at 25G. This could be why this the module didn't work, as the SerDes isn't configured for 10G and it could be that the BTS image in'st falling back to 10G. 
Did you set the BTS PHY configuration explicitly to 10G? And what did BTS say exactly?

shashwatss's avatar
shashwatss
Icon for New Contributor rankNew Contributor
2 months ago

Hi,

Thank you for your response. There is no option to modify the configuration in the BTS front-end.
Having considered the 25G default setting, another attempt was made using the transceiver 25G which is marketed as compatible with Nvidia. The exact product is SFP-25GSR-85 (compatible with Nvidia Mellanox). This also did not work.

Also, attempts with QSFP-SR4-100G(compatible with Nvidia Mellanox) along with the example sof config using BTS also did not succeed. 

  • CheepinC_altera's avatar
    CheepinC_altera
    Icon for Regular Contributor rankRegular Contributor
    1 month ago

    Hi,

     

    Just would like to follow up with you on this. Thank you.

  • CheepinC_altera's avatar
    CheepinC_altera
    Icon for Regular Contributor rankRegular Contributor
    2 months ago

    Hi,


    I agree with umut_arrow that the cages are not vendor-locked and should support any standards-compliant SFP+/QSFP+ module.


    To ensure we have a clear understanding of the issue, could you please help provide some additional information?

    1. Could you elaborate on the issue you are observing?
    2. A detailed description of the setup, along with any block diagrams, topology diagrams, screenshots, or error logs, would be very helpful for our understanding.
    3. Could you confirm whether you are using an SFP+ loopback module?
    4. Knowing the exact module type and part number would help us better assess the setup.
    5. Have you tried a simple single-channel transceiver test design?
    6. For example, transmit a fixed data pattern and use SignalTap to monitor the looped-back received data. This can help isolate whether the issue is related to the transceiver link, module, or the design itself.


    Please let me know if you have any questions or additional information to share. We will be happy to assist further.



    Best regards,

    Chee Pin