Intel® Cyclone® 10 GX Transceiver PHY User Guide

ID 683054
Date 4/14/2023
Public
Document Table of Contents

2.5. Interlaken

Interlaken is a scalable, channelized chip-to-chip interconnect protocol.

The key advantages of Interlaken are scalability and low I/O count compared to earlier protocols such as SPI 4.2. Other key features include flow control, low overhead framing, and extensive integrity checking. Interlaken operates on 64-bit data words and 3 control bits, which are striped round-robin across the lanes. The protocol accepts packets on 256 logical channels and is expandable to accommodate up to 65,536 logical channels. Packets are split into small bursts that can optionally be interleaved. The burst semantics include integrity checking and per logical channel flow control.

The Interlaken interface is supported with 1 to 12 lanes running at data rates up to 12.5 Gbps per lane on Cyclone® 10 GX devices. Interlaken is implemented using the Enhanced PCS. The Enhanced PCS has demonstrated interoperability with Interlaken ASSP vendors and third-party IP suppliers.

Cyclone® 10 GX devices provide three preset variations for Interlaken in the Cyclone® 10 GX Transceiver Native PHY IP Parameter Editor:

  • Interlaken 10x12.5 Gbps
  • Interlaken 1x6.25 Gbps
  • Interlaken 6x10.3 Gbps

Depending on the line rate, the enhanced PCS can use a PMA to PCS interface width of 32, 40, or 64 bits.

Figure 16. Transceiver Channel Datapath and Clocking for InterlakenThis figure assumes the serial data rate is 12.5 Gbps and the PMA width is 40 bits.