Xilinx, Ansoft team on gigabit interconnect design

FPGA Xilinx and EDA tool house Ansoft have crafted a gigabit interconnect design kit that allows designers to perform accurate "what if" analysis on high-speed printed circuit board (PCB) and backplane designs.

The new design kit is based on Xilinx's MK322 platform, which is the PCB used for the electrical evaluation and characterization of RocketIO X transceivers used in Virtex-II Pro FPGAs. This kit is a virtual evaluation board that allows designers to simulate specific PCB and backplane design requirements. The kit uses Virtex-II Pro X driver and receiver models as well as pre-emphasis levels, voltage swing, and receive-side equalization to deliver a virtual prototype of the individual RocketIO X channels. Designers then use Ansoft's Nexxim, DesignerSI, and HFSS tools to perform channel analysis.

The design kit currently supports Virtex-II Pro X FPGAs. It can also be scaled to support Virtex-4 FPGAs.

- Robert Keenan

CommsDesign.com