One of the most popular interfaces in the FPGA world is FMC. This has recently been expanded to FMC+. The new VITA 57.4 standard defines two new connectors. Combined, they offer 32 full-duplex channels running at 28 Gbps. However, the current generation of FPGAs and MPSoCs have transceivers supporting data rates in excess of 32 Gbps. Why? Emerging protocols – including PCIe Gen 5 and JESD204C – will run at 32 Gbps. Engineers developing solutions using 32Gbps+ protocols need … [Read more...]
Samtec Introduces New VITA 57.4-compliant FMC+ Loopback Cards
Developing high-speed communication paths using the latest FPGA multi-gigabit transceivers presents engineers with many challenges. What data rates and protocols need supporting? What reference clock frequency is needed? Will the PLLs work? Thankfully, most of the transceiver hardware concerns - differential signaling, impedance matching, equalization and pre-emphasis among other details - are addressed in FPGA development and evaluation cards from the FPGA vendors. FPGA designers can … [Read more...]