Altera Transceiver PHY IP Core User Manual
Page 647
Migrating from Stratix IV to Stratix V Devices
Overview
20
2013.12.20
UG-01080
Previously, Altera provided the ALTGX megafunction as a general purpose transceiver PHY solution. The
current release of the Quartus II software includes protocol-specific PHY IP cores that simplify the
parameterization process.
The design of these protocol-specific transceiver PHYs is modular and uses standard interfaces. An
Avalon-MM interface provides access to control and status registers that record the status of the PCS and
PMA modules. Consequently, you no longer must include signals in the top level of your transceiver PHY
to determine the status of the serial RX and TX interfaces. Using standard interfaces to access this device-
dependent information should ease future migrations to other device families and reduce the overall
design complexity. However, to facilitate debugging, you may still choose to include some device-
dependent signals in the top level of your design during the initial simulations or even permanently. All
protocol-specific PHY IP in Stratix V devices also include embedded controls for post-reset initialization
which are available through the Avalon-MM interface.
For Stratix IV devices, the location of the transceiver dynamic reconfiguration logic is design dependent.
In general, reconfiguration logic is integrated with the transceiver channels for simple configurations and
is separately instantiated for more complex designs that use a large number of channels or instantiate
more than one protocol in a single transceiver quad. For Stratix V devices, transceiver dynamic reconfigu‐
ration is always performed using the separately instantiated Transceiver Reconfiguration Controller.
Control of loopback modes is also different in Stratix IV and Stratix V devices. For Stratix IV devices, you
must select loopback options in the using the MegaWizard Plug-In Manager. For Stratix V devices, you
control loopback modes through Avalon-MM registers.
Table 20-1: Controlling Loopback Modes in Stratix IV and Stratix V Devices
Loopback Mode
Stratix IV
Stratix V
Serial loopback
On the Loopback tab of the
ALTGX MegaWizard Plug-In
Manager, Instantiate the
rx_
seriallpbken
signal by selecting
the Serial loopback option. Drive
this signal to 1 to put the
transceiver in serial loopback
mode.
Use the Avalon-MM PHY
management interface to set the
appropriate bit in the
phy_serial_
loopback
register (0x061).
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