Basys3 vs ARTY, GTP Transceivers?

[Adam]

I noticed that the FPGA used on the ARTY (CSG324) does not appear to have any of the GTP transceivers bonded.

The FPGA used on the Basys3 (CPG236) looks to have (2) GTP transceivers bonded?  This seems odd because Xilinx advertises them in quads, and doesn't mention anything about that specific package in the pinout documentation (see page 30 of Artix-7 pinout PDF, too large to upload).

1) Has anyone tried using these transceivers on the Basys3?  Perhaps through a PMOD interface?

2) Is there a MRCC or SRCC pin available on one of the PMOD which is in the same clock region as one of the GTP transceivers?

If It's true, I'll go ahead and order a Basys3.

Thanks!

[hamster]

Hi Adam,

The schematics for the Basys3 are at https://reference.digilentinc.com/_media/basys3:basys3_sch.pdf - have a look at IC7E on page 6.

But to answer you questions directly:

1) No - none of the Transceivers are exposed on the PMOD connectors.

2) Clock capable pins are exposed on PMOD JC. However, if you were able to use the transceivers I'm pretty sure you would want to be using one of the MGTREFCLK pins. It is not recommended to clock transceivers from the FPGA's clocking networks (so much so that you can't do it with the IP generator).

As far as I can tel, if you want to use the high speed transceivers, then you will be looking for an board with an FMC connector, as the PMOD connectors are not designed for very high speed signals.