The hardware example design connects system and PLL reference clocks and required design components. After you program the device on the Arria 10 GX transceiver signal integrity development board, the example design configures the IP core in internal loopback mode and generates packets on the IP core TX user data transfer interface. The IP core sends these packets on the internal loopback path through the transceiver. After the IP core receiver receives the packets on the loopback path, it processes the Interlaken packets and transmits them on the RX user data transfer interface. The example design checks that the packets it receives on the IP core RX user data transfer interface are consistent with the packets sent in.

The hardware example design includes external PLLs. You can examine the clear text files to view sample code that implements one possible method to connect external PLLs to the 100G Interlaken IP core.

The hardware example design packs six Interlaken lanes in a transceiver block, and connects all of the channels in the same transceiver block to a single ATX PLL. The IP core connects ATX PLL to the 100G Interlaken IP core tx_pll_locked and tx_pll_powerdown ports. This simple connection model is only one of many options available to you for configuring and connecting the external PLLs in your 100G Interlaken design.