Low Latency 40- and 100-Gbps Ethernet MAC and PHY MegaCore Function User Guide

ID 683628
Date 12/28/2017
Public
Document Table of Contents

1.1. Low Latency 40- and 100-Gbps Ethernet MAC and PHY IP Core Supported Features

All LL 40-100GbE IP core variations include both a MAC and a PHY, and all variations are in full-duplex mode. These IP core variations offer the following features:

  • Designed to the IEEE 802.3ba-2010 High Speed Ethernet Standard available on the IEEE website (www.ieee.org).
  • Soft PCS logic that interfaces seamlessly to Altera 10.3125 Gbps and 25.78125 Gbps serial transceivers.
  • Standard XLAUI or CAUI external interface consisting of FPGA hard serial transceiver lanes operating at 10.3125 Gbps , or the CAUI-4 external interface consisting of four FPGA hard serial transceiver lanes operating at 25.78125 Gbps.
  • Supports 40GBASE-KR4 PHY based on 64B/66B encoding with data striping and alignment markers to align data from multiple lanes.
  • Supports 40GBASE-KR4 PHY and forward error correction (FEC) option for interfacing to backplanes.
  • Supports Synchronous Ethernet (Sync-E) by providing an optional CDR recovered clock output signal to the device fabric.
  • Avalon Memory-Mapped (Avalon-MM) management interface to access the IP core control and status registers.
  • Avalon-ST data path interface connects to client logic with the start of frame in the most significant byte (MSB) when optional adapters are used. Interface has data width 256 or 512 bits depending on the data rate.
  • Optional custom streaming data path interface with narrower bus width and a start frame possible on 64‑bit word boundaries without the optional adapters. Interface has data width 128 or 256 bits depending on the data rate.
  • Support for jumbo packets.
  • TX and RX CRC pass-through control.
  • Optional TX CRC generation and insertion.
  • RX CRC checking and error reporting.
  • TX error insertion capability supports test and debug.
  • RX and TX preamble pass-through options for applications that require proprietary user management information transfer.
  • TX automatic frame padding to meet the 64-byte minimum Ethernet frame length at the LL 40-100GbE Ethernet connection.
  • Hardware and software reset control.
  • Pause frame filtering control.
  • Received control frame type indication.
  • MAC provides cut-through frame processing.
  • Optional deficit idle counter (DIC) options to maintain a finely controlled 8-byte or 12-byte inter-packet gap (IPG) minimum average.
  • Optional IEEE 802.3 Clause 31 Ethernet flow control operation using the pause registers or pause interface.
  • Optional priority-based flow control that complies with the IEEE Standard 802.1Qbb-2011—Amendment 17: Priority-based Flow Control, using the pause registers for fine control.
  • RX PCS lane skew tolerance that exceeds the IEEE 802.3-2012 Ethernet standard clause 82.2.12 requirements: 1900 bits RX lane skew tolerance for LL 40GbE IP cores and 1000 bits RX lane skew tolerance for LL 100GbE IP cores.
  • Optional support for the IEEE Standard 1588-2008 Precision Clock Synchronization Protocol (1588 PTP).
  • Optional statistics counters.
  • Optional f ault signaling: detects and reports local fault and generates remote fault, with IEEE 802.3ba-2012 Ethernet Standard Clause 66 support.
  • Optional serial PMA loopback (TX to RX) at the serial transceiver for self-diagnostic testing.
  • Optional access to Altera Debug Master Endpoint (ADME) for debugging or monitoring PHY signal integrity.

The LL 40-100GbE IP core can support full wire line speed with a 64-byte frame length and back-to-back or mixed length traffic with no dropped packets.

For a detailed specification of the Ethernet protocol refer to the IEEE 802.3ba-2010 High Speed Ethernet Standard.