Bob Blake, European marketing manager, said devices such as the iPhone and the iPad continue to drive bandwidth requirements. "While the infrastructure is in place, there are bottlenecks in transmission and access points and their performance will have to be increased to meet future needs."
Performance is degraded by connectivity issues, particularly when the links are between boards in a system or even between systems. This also means more complex routing and increased cost, said Blake.
A further complication is that FR4, the most common pcb substrate, can't support 12.5Gbit/s communications. Using such materials as Megtron 6 can increase cost dramatically in a cost sensitive industry.
"One communication option is optical," Blake continued. "By including optical interfaces within fpgas, we can help to overcome these layout challenges." Blake also pointed to interfaces such as USB 3.0, which plan optical options.
Current designs use CFP modules to interface between fpgas and optical networks. "But this takes up space and needs a lot of circuitry," Blake claimed. "We're looking to eliminate signal integrity challenges in 'inside the box' applications, rather than long reach." Nevertheless, Altera is aiming to support 100m links.
The technology may also find application elsewhere, including radar and high performance computing. Altera claims that, if used in data centres, the integration of optical interfaces into device packages could replace pluggable optics and reduce power by 70% while increasing port density and bandwidth by 'orders of magnitude'.
