Forum Discussion
Configurable transceiver enable
- 4 months ago
My understanding of "board‑level transceiver parameters are static at power‑up", implied they are compile‑time only. In practice, changing these parameters would require IP regeneration and a full FPGA recompilation, rather than being something that can be altered dynamically at runtime (i.e., they behave similarly to localparam settings).
With that in mind, let me rephrase my understanding of a possible implementation approach:
- Only 2 channels would be active in normal operation.
- The remaining channels would be treated as unused channels
- Only 1 bitstream
Based on the transceiver reset architecture described in the Cyclone 10 GX Transceiver PHY User Guide, you may want to consider this conceptual approach to instantiate a 4‑channel transceiver, and control which channel is active using the four independent reset ports per channel:
- tx_analogreset
- tx_digitalreset
- rx_analogreset
- rx_digitalreset

For the unused channels, the handling would be:
- Assert TX analog reset
- Assert RX analog reset
- Keep TX and RX digital reset asserted as well
This would prevent the unused channels from calibrating, transmitting, or receiving data, while keeping the configuration static and avoiding any runtime reconfiguration complexity.
Hi Julia,
Could you send back the information for the following clarifying questions to make sure the problem is fully understood and to avoid proposing the wrong solution.
- Which Altera device family and part number are you using, and which transceiver type (e.g., FGT, FHT, GTS)?
- Is the board parameter static for the entire power‑up, or can it change dynamically after FPGA configuration?
- Do channels 1–2 and 3–4 operate at the same line rate and reference clock, or do they have different requirements?
- Are these channels used for a specific protocol (e.g., PCIe, Ethernet, JESD204, Aurora), or are they raw PHYs?
Hi JonWay,
the device is Cyclone 10 GX 10CX105YU484I6G and the transceiver is the 12.5Gbps transceiver. Though I will use it at a lower data rate.
The board parameter is static during the entire power-up. The channels operate at the same line rate and have the same reference clock. The channels will be used with a custom protocol, so raw PHYs are instantiated.
Best regards,
Julia