Connecting EXOSTIV

Standard connectivity.

Exostiv probe connects to FPGA transceivers / SERDES at up to 12.5 Gbps with standard connectors available on many FPGA boards, including ASIC / SoC prototyping platforms.

  • SFP+ (copper or optical cables) – up to 12.5 Gbps per link;
  • QSFP+ or QSFP28 (copper or optical cables) – up to 12.5 Gbps per link;
  • HD Mini SAS or Mini SAS (copper or optical cables) – up to 12.5 Gbps per link;
  • FMC HPC and LPC with a plug-in adapter – up to 12.5 Gbps per link;
  • SATA with a SFP+ to SATA connectivity kit. – up to 6.6 Gbps per link

Custom connectivity.

Alternative solutions involve choosing another connector or use a mezzanine connector and making an adapter for it. The choice of a connector and adapter depends on your target board and constraints. Please contact us to find out about the best solutions.

Important: Exostiv Probe connectivity included the usage of a ‘HDMI connector’ with a custom pinout for compact connectivity. Using this connector is not recommended for new designs. It will be supported as legacy for existing designs only. Please contact us to receive guidelines for compact connectors as we are updating our documentation.

Which connector works for you?

1. Is there an existing SFP/SFP+/QSFP/QSP+ directly connected to the FPGA transceivers?

  • Check if you can reserve this FPGA resource (and the board connector) for debug – at least temporarily. You’ll need 1 SFP/SFP+ connection per used gigabit transceiver
  • QSFP/QSFP+ connectors can be used with a 4xSFP to QSFP cable with splitter.

Note: most of our partners’ boards or FPGA vendor standard demo kits feature SFP/SFP+, quad SFP/SFP+ or QSFP/QSFP+ connectors by default. And they are directly connected to FPGA transceivers.

2. Is there another type of connector directly connected to the FPGA transceivers?

  • With a board adapter, you can use EXOSTIV
  • FMC (‘FPGA Mezzanine Card’) is a good example.
    Exostiv Labs has created a HDMI to FMC module adapter that works with EXOSTIV. Many other FMC to SFP/QSFP adapters can be found commercially.
  • Would you like to make your own adapter? We can help and review it with you.

Please contact us for details on our adapters, external references and custom adapters support.

3. For all other cases: you’ll need to modify your board and add a connector.
Contact us and we’ll find the best solution for you.

  • You do not have space constraints (lucky you)? Pick the one you like: SFP/QSFP/other (+ adapter).