Arria® 10 Transceiver PHY User Guide

ID 683617
Date 4/01/2024
Public
Document Table of Contents

5.4.2.2. Rate Match FIFO

In asynchronous systems, the upstream transmitter and local receiver can be clocked with independent reference clocks. Frequency differences in the order of a few hundred PPM can corrupt the data when latching from the recovered clock domain to the local receiver reference clock domain. The rate match FIFO compensates for small clock frequency differences between these two clock domains by inserting or removing SKP symbols in the data stream to keep the FIFO from going empty or full respectively.

The PCI Express* 3.0 base specification defines that the SKP Ordered Set (OS) can be 66, 98, 130, 162, or 194 bits long. The SKP OS has the following fixed bits: 2-bit Sync, 8-bit SKP END, and a 24-bit LFSR = 34 Bits. The Rate Match/Clock compensation block adds or deletes the 4 SKP characters (32-bit) to keep the FIFO from going empty or full, respectively. If the FIFO is nearly full, it deletes the 4 SKP characters (32-bit) by disabling write whenever a SKP is found. If the FIFO is nearly empty, the design waits for a SKP Ordered Set to start and then stops reading the data from the FIFO, and inserts a SKP in the outgoing data. The actual FIFO core (memory element) is in the Shared Memory block in the PCS channel.

Figure 267. Rate Match FIFO