“Eclipse fever” gripped most of the United States this past Monday. Vast swathes of the country from the Pacific Northwest to the Southeast were mesmerized by a once-in-a-lifetime total solar eclipse.
All walks of life stopped to watch the celestial phenomena. Viewing parties were held in cities and national parks. Astronomers had their fifteen seconds of fame. The general public learned new terms like “totality” and “syzygy“.
SYZYGY – A New FPGA Expansion Specification
No doubt “eclipse fever” affected many this past week. However, “syzygy” also entered the lexicon or FPGA designers and interconnect specialists this month as well.
FPGA module manufacture Opal Kelly released a new SYZYGY FPGA peripheral specification earlier this month. There are numerous FPGA peripheral specifications available on the market. Why is there a need for another one?
SYZYGY bridges the gap between Pmods and FMCs. 6-pin or 12-pin Pmods are extremely simple, small, flexible and cost-effective by their nature. FMCs typically support high-performance peripherals with Gbps data rates and high I/O counts. Is there a middle ground?
The graphic below illustrates the FPGA peripheral gap being filled. Pmods support low I/O counts in kbps. FMCs supports high I/O counts and multi-gigabit transceivers up to 28 Gbps, SYZYGY fills the missing gap by supporting medium I/O counts in the low-speed transceivers.
Connectors and Cable Assemblies
As with any FPGA peripheral specification, standard board-to-board connectors and cables assemblies are typically defined. Both the Standard SYZYGY and Transceiver SYZYGY interfaces define carrier side and peripheral side connectors. Optional cost-effective, high-performance cable assemblies are also available.
The Standard interface provides up to 28 single-ended, impedance-controlled signals. A maximum of sixteen signals can be defined as differential pairs. Interconnect options include:
- Carrier Side Connector – QTE-020-01-F-D-A-L
- Peripheral Side Connector – QSE-020-01-F-D-A-L
- Cables – EQCD-020 in varying lengths
The Transceiver connector supports four lanes of multi-gigabit transceivers and up to 18 single-ended signals. Interconnect options include:
- Carrier Side Connector – QTH-020-01-F-D-DP-A-L
- Peripheral Side Connector – QSH-020-01-F-D-DP-A-L
- Cables – HQDP-020 in varying lengths
Additional Information
For more information on the SYZYFY specification, please visit the following sites:
- Opal Kelly New FPGA Peripheral Interconnect Specification
- Xilinx blog – The new “Goldilocks” standard?
- A New Standard for FPGA Peripherals
- SYZYGY Specification
