FPGA Central

Hi all,

I am trying to use a Aurora Core and MGT transceiver to get high Speed
serial transmission signal out.
I have run into several problems..

One problem is getting the Aurora Core simulated...
I generated a core using the core generator with the following
settings. Streaming, Simplex -Both directions.
I tried to simulate the design using the given tb and the do scripts.
The clocks are toggling..but there is not data being transferred.. I
tried several versions of the aurora 2.4, 2.6, 2.7, 2.7.1.. Still the
same issue.. Do_CC is also not asserted. so idle signals are not being
sent... Is there something I am missing...

Also I need to send the high speed signal out to to RF unit...
So there is no initialization signals being sent back.. And
tx_d_ready signal from the receiver.
The initialization can be probabaly set by the sender side.. but how
does the tx_d_ready signal assrted from the GT_Aurora primitve.
FPGA Board - Xupv2p
FPGA - XC2VP30
My setup is ISE 9.1i Sp3.

Thanks,

Cheers
Shakith

Shakith,

On simulation issue you need to have support for swift models in your
simulator, although personally I think there is very little value in
simulating MGTs if you are going to use one of the standard cores such as
Aurora.

WRT initialization, read carefully the chapter on Simplex Initialization in
the Aurora User Guide. The easiest to initialize are full-duplex channels.
Simplex channels require either a back channel or tricks with using timers.
I used the former method in my design.


/Mikhail



<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected] oups.com...
> Hi all,
>
> I am trying to use a Aurora Core and MGT transceiver to get high Speed
> serial transmission signal out.
> I have run into several problems..
>
> One problem is getting the Aurora Core simulated...
> I generated a core using the core generator with the following
> settings. Streaming, Simplex -Both directions.
> I tried to simulate the design using the given tb and the do scripts.
> The clocks are toggling..but there is not data being transferred.. I
> tried several versions of the aurora 2.4, 2.6, 2.7, 2.7.1.. Still the
> same issue.. Do_CC is also not asserted. so idle signals are not being
> sent... Is there something I am missing...
>
> Also I need to send the high speed signal out to to RF unit...
> So there is no initialization signals being sent back.. And
> tx_d_ready signal from the receiver.
> The initialization can be probabaly set by the sender side.. but how
> does the tx_d_ready signal assrted from the GT_Aurora primitve.
> FPGA Board - Xupv2p
> FPGA - XC2VP30
> My setup is ISE 9.1i Sp3.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Cheers
> Shakith
>

Hi Mikhail,

Thanks..
Yeah.. Managed to get simulation bug out of the way.. The problem was
GT_custom, GT_aurora simulation libraries wasn't there in the
modelsim. I downloaded the simulation libraries from Xilinx site. But
it didn't include the those libraries. I used modelsim tocompile
necessary libraries and load it in.

Regarding initialization, was reading that chapter...One question I
have is, does the 1st MGT(sender for example) need to be linked to 2nd
MGT(receiver for example)
to be initialized. There must be some sort of handshaking mechanism
there..So if i remove the 2nd MGT, what would happen to the link at
the start...was trying to see the behavior in simulation..

Thanks,

Regards,
Shakith
On Oct 25, 2:11 am, "MM" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Shakith,
>
> On simulation issue you need to have support for swift models in your
> simulator, although personally I think there is very little value in
> simulating MGTs if you are going to use one of the standard cores such as
> Aurora.
>
> WRT initialization, read carefully the chapter on Simplex Initialization in
> the Aurora User Guide. The easiest to initialize are full-duplex channels.
> Simplex channels require either a back channel or tricks with using timers.
> I used the former method in my design.
>
> /Mikhail
>
> <[email protected]> wrote in message
>
> news:[email protected] oups.com...
>
> > Hi all,
>
> > I am trying to use a Aurora Core and MGT transceiver to get high Speed
> > serial transmission signal out.
> > I have run into several problems..
>
> > One problem is getting the Aurora Core simulated...
> > I generated a core using the core generator with the following
> > settings. Streaming, Simplex -Both directions.
> > I tried to simulate the design using the given tb and the do scripts.
> > The clocks are toggling..but there is not data being transferred.. I
> > tried several versions of the aurora 2.4, 2.6, 2.7, 2.7.1.. Still the
> > same issue.. Do_CC is also not asserted. so idle signals are not being
> > sent... Is there something I am missing...
>
> > Also I need to send the high speed signal out to to RF unit...
> > So there is no initialization signals being sent back.. And
> > tx_d_ready signal from the receiver.
> > The initialization can be probabaly set by the sender side.. but how
> > does the tx_d_ready signal assrted from the GT_Aurora primitve.
> > FPGA Board - Xupv2p
> > FPGA - XC2VP30
> > My setup is ISE 9.1i Sp3.
>
> > Thanks,
>
> > Cheers
> > Shakith

<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected] ps.com...
>
> Regarding initialization, was reading that chapter...One question I
> have is, does the 1st MGT(sender for example) need to be linked to 2nd
> MGT(receiver for example) to be initialized. There must be some sort of
> handshaking mechanism
> there..

Yes, the transmitter has to be connected to the receiver with the main link
AND you either have to add another connection (back channel) or implement
some other tricks, which I personally couldn't get to work in my design.

The simplest implementation of the back channel would be to directly connect
the following 4 pairs of signals:
TX_ALIGNED - RX_ALIGNED
TX_BONDED - RX_BONDED
TX_VERIFY - RX_VERIFY
TX_RESET - RX_RESET

And then you just watch the LANE_UP and CHANNEL_UP signals to go up a while
after simulation starts...


/Mikhail

A small addition:

The TX_BONDED-RX_BONDED connection is only required when channel bonding is
used.

/Mikhail

Hi Mikhail.

Alright..
There seems to be new model Using the Timer-Based Simplex Mode in the
version of Aurora 2.8 core. This contains the little tricks to set
initialization settings using a timer. Will check that option out as
well.

Thanks,

Best Regards
shakith
On Oct 25, 10:29 pm, "MM" <[email protected]> wrote:
> A small addition:
>
> The TX_BONDED-RX_BONDED connection is only required when channel bonding is
> used.
>
> /Mikhail