High-Speed Serial Protocol Multi-Link and Multi-Stage for FPGAs

Abstract

This work presents a high-speed communication link implementation for a high-resolution camera used in a low earth orbit (LEO) satellite, that was already in space. The whole acquisition system involves three Microsemi FPGAs that move a great amount of data over a multi-link high-speed serial channel. The implementation of a custom protocol is proposed to perform a point-to-point communication. To validate the proposal, tests on hardware are presented, reaching an average speed up to 2.96 Gbps. Finally, the proposed design is compared with other proprietary solution from Microsemi, highlighting the pros and cons of each one. The protocol presented in this work, was implemented and it has worked successfully in space.