AN 456: PCI Express High Performance Reference Design

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ID 683541
Date 12/12/2018
Public
Document Table of Contents
Document Table of Contents x
1. PCI Express High Performance Reference Design
1. PCI Express High Performance Reference Design x
1.1. Understanding Throughput in PCI Express 1.2. Deliverables Included with the Reference Design 1.3. Reference Design Functional Description 1.4. Hardware Requirements 1.5. Software Requirements 1.6. Software Installation 1.7. Hardware Installation 1.8. Running the Software Application 1.9. Additional Chaining DMA Commands 1.10. Using SignalTap II 1.11. Performance Benchmarking Results 1.12. Document Revision History
1.1. Understanding Throughput in PCI Express x
1.1.1. Protocol Overhead 1.1.2. Throughput for Posted Writes 1.1.3. Throughput for Reads
1.3. Reference Design Functional Description x
1.3.1. File Naming Conventions 1.3.2. Project Hierarchy
1.7. Hardware Installation x
1.7.1. Programming using the .sof File
1. PCI Express High Performance Reference Design

1.4. Hardware Requirements

The reference design requires the following hardware:
  • The Arria II GX FPGA Development Kit, the Arria V GT FPGA Development Kit, the Arria 10 GX FPGA Development kit, the Cyclone IV GX FPGA Development Kit, the Cyclone V GT FPGA Development Kit, the Stratix IV GX FPGA Development Kit, or and Stratix V GX FPGA Development Kit.
  • A computer running Windows driver with an x8/x4/ x1 PCI Express slot for the Arria II GX, Arria V GT, Arria 10 GX, Cyclone IV GX, Cyclone V GT, Stratix IV GX, or Stratix V GX development board. The software application and hardware are installed on this computer, referred to as computer #1 in this document.
  • A computer with the Quartus II software for downloading FPGA programming files to the Arria II GX, Arria V GT, Arria 10 GX, Cyclone IV GX, Cyclone V GT, Stratix IV GX, or Stratix V GX development board, referred to as computer #2 in this document.
  • A USB cable or other Altera download cable.
  • A PCI Express x8-to-x4 lane converter for x4 operation or x8 to x1 lane converter for x1 operation.
Note: This reference design uses eight lanes. If the PCI Express slot on your motherboard has fewer than four lanes, you must use a lane converter to transfer data from the higher lanes to the lower available lane.
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