A 34 Gbps data transmission system with FPGAs embedded transceivers and QSFP+ modules

APEnet+ is our custom developed PCIe gen2 board based on an Altera Stratix IV FPGA. We demonstrate reliable usage of Altera's embedded transceivers coupled with QSFP+ (Quad Small Form Pluggable) technology. QSFP+ standard defines a hot-pluggable transceiver available in copper or optical cable assemblies for an aggregated bandwidth of up to 40 Gbps. We use embedded transceivers in a 4 lane configuration, each one capable of 8.5 Gbps, for an aggregate bandwidth of 34 Gpbs per link. On Stratix IV 290 we can place up to 6 bidirectional links, together with a PCIe gen2 ×8 hard IP. We describe design and implementation of this data transmission system.