Products

I recently received and tested the first 1.8V Ethernet FMCs and they are now available to buy on ethernetfmc.com. There are two main reasons why you’d actually want a 1.8V version: Firstly, some carriers only support VADJ of 1.8V (such as the VC707 and VC709). Secondly, some customers need to match it with another 1.8V FMC on a dual-FMC carrier.

Releasing the new version didn’t come without headaches. Most FMC carriers on the market have a 2.5V VADJ by default, so there’s a good chance of frying the Ethernet PHYs on first go. Luckily I haven’t made that mistake yet! The other “problem” is the fact that the board provides a 125MHz LVDS clock - respecting the Vita 57 standard - but creating a problem for carriers with FMCs that route to HR (high-range) banks. Which is most of them! Yes the ZedBoard, AC701, KC705, ZC702 and ZC706 all route to HR banks. HR banks require you to define your LVDS I/Os with the LVDS_25 IO standard (ie. the 2.5V standard), but we’d really want to be using the LVDS (1.8V) IO standard. So I had to either declare non-compatibility or find a workaround. Fortunately, there is a workaround and I’ve written about it here:

One question I get a lot about the Ethernet FMC is: What is the maximum throughput? It’s a good question, so I created an example design to help me get the answer. The maximum throughput test design, that you can download on Github, uses four hardware packet generators (coded in VHDL) to feed the Ethernet MACs with back-to-back packets. These packets then get sent out of the Ethernet ports and get looped back into another Ethernet port through a CAT-5 cable. Here is the block diagram:

Support for the Xilinx Series-7 development boards AC701, KC705, VC707, ZC702 and ZC706 has been added to the Ethernet FMC product page. Now you can use the Ethernet FMC on any one of these boards and support up to 8 x gigabit Ethernet ports! That’s right, the KC705, VC707 and ZC702 have two FMC connectors allowing you to plug in two Ethernet FMCs, enabling 8 independent ports.

• AC701 - supports 1 x Ethernet FMC (4-ports)
• KC705 - supports 2 x Ethernet FMCs (8-ports)
• VC707 - supports 2 x Ethernet FMCs (8-ports)
• VC709 - supports 1 x Ethernet FMC (4-ports)
• ZC702 - supports 2 x Ethernet FMCs, but there’s only enough FPGA resources to configure the 8 MACs with FIFOs (not DMAs).
• ZC706 - supports 1 x Ethernet FMC on the LPC, but unfortunately the HPC has pins LA17_CC and LA18_CC routed to non-clock-capable pins.

Download the Vivado constraint files from the Docs section on the product page.

Today I’m excited to announce that the first Ethernet FMCs were shipped! I would like to say thanks to all those who pre-ordered the Ethernet FMC, thanks for your patience and confidence and I hope the product enables you to develop new and exciting technologies in the networking space.

I’ve had an insanely busy last few weeks trying to organize the production of the boards, testing the boards, as well as working out the packaging, labeling and shipping materials. All the work in getting the product to a complete and clean-cut state has been much more time-consuming than I had ever imagined, but the learning experience was worth the effort many times over.

Announcing that the new Ethernet FMC, a Quad Gigabit Ethernet FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC) is now available to buy. The board is designed for easy integration with the ZedBoard, with open-source example designs so you can start designing your product sooner. The low-pin-count FMC features 4 Marvell PHYs, a 125MHz oscillator and a quad RJ45 with integrated magnetics.

The Ethernet FMC is compliant to the Vita 57.1 FMC standard except for its height (due to the RJ45 connector) and its length. The FMC is electrically and mechanically compatible with the ZedBoard and all the Xilinx evaluation boards.

Here’s the next product in Opsero’s growing lineup of FPGA I/O cards: the Quad Gigabit Ethernet FMC. This low-pin-count FMC is loaded with four Marvell Gigabit Ethernet PHYs and enables FPGA networking applications on the ZedBoard and other LPC carriers. A demo design for the ZedBoard is available on Github at the link below and further demos will become available in the next few weeks:

https://github.com/fpgadeveloper/zedboard-qgige

Look out for more details including the technical specs, schematics and more on the soon to be launched product page. (Update 2014-11-06: the product page is now open)

Here’s a peek at the first units of the SERDES FMCs, the first low pin-count FPGA Mezzanine Card to enable multi-gigabit transceivers on the ZedBoard and other FPGA boards that don’t have internal MGTs. The first board is designed for SFP modules for Ethernet and optical applications whereas the second board has SATA connectors for custom applications. Both boards are compliant to the VITA 57 standard.

Stay tuned for the performance results this week!

Yesterday I received the bare PCBs for the SERDES SFP FMC, my new product that enables 2 multi-gigabit transceivers on the ZedBoard or other LPC FMC carriers that don’t have internal MGTs.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been working hard on a demo design in Vivado which you can find on Github here:

https://github.com/fpgadeveloper/zedboard-serdes-sfp-fmc

So far all timing passes at the board’s top speed of 3.125Gbps (or 2.5Gbps with DC balanced encoding).

After years designing products for other companies, I’ve finally designed something for my own company.

If you have a ZedBoard and you want to experiment with MGTs, now you can with my two new SERDES low-pin-count FMCs. Both boards use the DS32EL0421/DS32EL0124 serializer/deserializer devices from Texas Instruments to provide two external multi-gigabit transceivers from any standard FMC carrier regardless of whether the FPGA has internal MGTs or not. The external MGTs can transmit and receive data up to 2.5Gbps with DC-balance encoding (8b/10b) or up to 3.125Gbps without DC-balance encoding.

Over the last few months I’ve been very busy thanks to the popularity of Xilinx’s Zynq SoC. Here’s the latest project I’ve been working on for Evans Analytical Group, a Zynq based controller for high-power burn-in of ASICs. This custom board uses the Zynq XC7Z020 which contains a Dual Core ARM processor plus FPGA programmable logic. With 1GB DDR3 memory, Gigabit Ethernet and an SD memory card, this board is a powerful System-on-Module that can be connected to a carrier card via 3 wide expansion connectors. The board makes use of the Zynq’s internal XADC and also contains an external ADC and DAC to provide analog I/O through the expansion connectors.