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Advice on using DVB-ASI interface & assigning Differential pins on Cyclone 4 Dev kit.

Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
‎01-26-2011 03:22 AM
983 Views

Hello All: 

 

I have been working with Cyclone 3 and Cyclone 4 FPGA's for a while now. Everything has been working great for what I needed to do, with my experience level, Now I am running into issues with interfacing two FPGA's. 

 

So I would like advice on the simplest interface between two FPGA's with my current set-up. I have designed and built a high speed ADC board connected to a cyclone 3 FPGA starter kit. I have made an interface with SMA cables, and successfully transmitting DVB-ASI at 270 MBps from the cyclone 3 board. This in turn will be connected to the Cyclone 4 Transceiver Dev Kit on the SMA inputs, then will go into a Linux machine through the PCI express port. At this point it's a unidirectional "high speed" data transfer.  

 

I am looking for other suggestions that would solve my interface solution.  

IF the DVB-ASI Standard is an old one, and is possibly not recommend for new designs, and is "preliminary" on the cyclone 4 GX. I have looked at Rapid-IO, but the data rate is too high for my designs. Around 250 MBps is fine. 

 

 

Now, I am having trouble setting up the receiver section on the Cyclone 4 FPGA Started Dev kit, I have created the DVB-ASI megawizard IP, and I am trying to assign the Differential signal pins on the FPGA. I have re-soldered the capacitors on the Cyclone 4 Dev kit to accept from the SMA's. Also, With the DVB-ASI, Do I need to use the AltGX IP function? or does this only work with specific protocols? 

 

Also, if there are any app notes or docs on using the SMA inputs on the Cyclone 4 dev kit, to help me, please point me there. 

 

Currently, I have compiled my quick design, and following example "bts_xcvr", under "board_test_system".  

I cannot seem to get the input pins to be differential on pin E2 and E1. bts_xcvr example is using 1.4-PCML as a input standard, but only on 1 pin?? E2. Is there an easy procedure for this? 

 

Thanks! 

 

Mike
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
‎02-24-2011 05:55 AM
297 Views

Good start mike I believe in you. Sorry, I am not expert with. I can't input something that gonna help you. Best of luck.

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