Virtex-5 clocking

Hi Folks,

altough brand new I hope someone already made some experience with Virtex-5. I just switched from Virtex-4 to Virtex-5 and I must admit that the clock managment is... and remains... somewhat unclear to me!

It's plain to see that the clock management is handled a bit differently than Virtex-4. Virtex-5 clocking uses both DCM (digital clock managers) technology for delay control and PLL (phased lock loop) technology for lower jitter clock generation. But what does that mean to me, practically? What should I account for when designing a PCB with Virtex-5? Which IOs am I supposed to use?

In Virtex-4 I had Global Clock and Regional Clock Inputs. So far so good. In Virtex-5 I have plenty of different clock inputs and it is almost impossible to arrange for an optimal clock management at the time prior to developing the internal VHDL logic for the FPGA. Basically I'd like to know how to connect my global clock sources to the FPGA without catching problems later in implementing the VHDL and getting confronted with timing errors, etc.

Same problem - still much worse - with the RocketIO reference clocks! Plenty of clock inputs but. much too confusing! For example I'd like to take one reference clock for an arrangement of 10 RocketIOs. No problem with Virtex-II pro, no problem with Virtex-4, big problem with Virtex-5 for the clocks can only supply 4 RocketIOs at once... as far as I can judge.

Still, I may be wrong! So any help is highly appreciated.

Saul

Reply to
Saul Bernstein
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The Virtex-5 MGT REFCLK inputs can span up and down 3 of the GTP_DUAL or GTX_DUAL sites, so you can reach 7 DUALs or 14 lanes.

Ed McGettigan

-- Xilinx Inc.

Reply to
Ed McGettigan

Alright then.7 DUALs means 7 RocketIOs with both RX and TX connected, i.e.

14 lanes? In my application I'd like to have 10 MGTs (both RX + TX) running at 3.125 Gbps, 4 running at 5 Gbps, 2 at 4.25 Gbps and another 4 running at 2.5 Gbps. Which RocketIOs would you recommend to combine, relating to a shared reference MGTCLK input?

While we're at it, I've got another question concerning the power supply. On the ML510 eval platform Xilinx used seperate 1.0V supply modules for every MGT reference voltage input. That looks quite exaggerated to me. Is that a mandatory requirement?

Saul

"Ed McGettigan" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:_MrHk.2845$ snipped-for-privacy@nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com...

Reply to
Saul Bernstein

On Oct 10, 8:25=A0am, "Saul Bernstein" wrote: [snip]

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The eval board is somewhat overkill. The general rule is to place a filter from a clean 1.0V supply (not the Vccint supply) to each of the MGT blocks used. Unused MGT blocks also need to be powered, but don't require a filter.

Also you should have two 1.2V supplies, one for the VTT pins and one for PLL supplies. Again every MGT VTT and PLL pin need a filter when used.

My filters consist of a ferrite bead with about 220 Ohms at 100 MHz - BLM21PG221SN1 from Murata, and a

0.22 uF capacitor. I used 0508 low esr ceramics with leads on the long edges of the part, and two vias per pad. This may be overkill, but it didn't cost too much in board space and the results were good. Note that the V5 in the larger packages (which you must have if you've got 10 GTP's) have a lot of internal bypass caps, so you should have room for the MGT bypass given that the other supply high-frequency bypass is mostly in the BGA package.

Regards, Gabor

Reply to
Gabor

A GTP_DUAL site in Virtex-5 is the equivalent of 2 MGTs in the V-II Pro and V-4 FX families, so 7 GTP_DUALs is 14 MGTs, 4 more than you need. Any 5 adjacent GTP_DUALs will meet your needs and use the REFCLK in on the sites in the middle so that you don't violate the +/- 3 GTP_DUAL requirement.

The ML510 does not have separate power supplies for each GTP_DUAL, but it does have separate power supplies for each voltage rail, AVCC AVCC_PLL, AVCC, AVTT_TX and AVTT_RX. We did it this way so that we could margin the voltage rails independently if there was a need.

Ed McGettigan

-- Xilinx Inc.

Reply to
Ed McGettigan

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