Stratix II GX Transceiver Power
Stratix® II GX transceivers are optimized to minimize power requirement and simplify board layout without compromise to jitter performance or signal integrity. Power is particularly important in transceiver applications, because devices tend to be located in areas where forced air cooling is complex. Devices are often used in line-card applications where they are located near backplanes buried within a chassis, or located close to panel metalwork, so it is very important for the transceiver not to add significantly to the overall power budget.
The Stratix II GX power requirement is minimized by an innovative phase-locked loop (PLL) structure, and by the careful selection of the operational data range (between 600 Mbps and 6.375 Gbps), which is sufficient for the majority of the next generation of transceiver applications. The PLL structure ensures excellent jitter performance across the data range, while keeping die area at a minimum, leading to a reduced power requirement. As a result, Stratix II GX transceivers use less than a third of the power of the nearest competitor device at 3.125 Gbps rates and require only around half of the power at 6.375 Gbps.
Figure 1 shows a comparison between the Stratix II GX transceiver power consumption and the nearest competitive solution.
Figure 1. Transceiver Power Comparison
Stratix II GX transceivers can deliver a power saving in excess of 300 mW per channel at all speeds. This provides significant power savings in applications where multiple transceivers are used. For example a PCI Express x8 application using a Stratix II GX device will require around 2.3 W less transceiver power than the nearest competing device. Table 1 shows Stratix II GX transceiver power requirements and the potential savings with 16 channels operational.
| Table 1. Typical Power Figures |
| Data Rate |
Power Per Channel (1) |
Potential Saving (16 channels) (2) |
| 3.125 Gbps |
140 mW |
4.5 W |
| 6.375 Gbps |
200 mW |
5.6W |
Notes to Table 1:
- Results taken from Stratix II GX Characterization
- Competitor's results taken from published datasheet
Stratix II GX transceiver architecture provides you a further benefit by reducing the number of external components required within the power supply design. The robust transceiver architecture means you can reduce the number of external power supply filtering components, leading to a more simplified board layout and lower overall system cost. The Stratix II GX Board Layout Guidelines provide full details of the Stratix II GX board layout requirements.
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