
PMC-Sierra,Inc.
8-Channel 1.0-1.25 Gbps Transceiver
PMC-2000672 (R3)
PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL TO PMC-SIERRA, INC., AND FOR ITS CUSTOMERS
’
 INTERNAL USE
 Copyright PMC
-
Sierra, Inc. 2001
PM8351 OctalPHY
FEATURES
 Eight independent 1.0-1.25 Gbit/s 
transceivers
 Ultra low power operation: 1.25 Watts 
typical
 Integrated serializer/deserializer, clock 
synthesis, clock recovery, and 8B/10B 
encode/decode logic
 Physical Coding Sublayer (PCS) logic 
for Gigabit Ethernet
 Optional receive FIFO which 
synchronizes incoming data to local 
clock domain
 Dual Data Rate (DDR) parallel 
interface with clock forwarding to halve 
ASIC terminal count and simplify 
timing
 Extensive control of loopback, BIST, 
and operating modes via 802.3 
compliant MDC/MDIO serial interface
 Built-in packet generator/checker
 “Trunking” feature to de-skew and 
align received parallel data across 
eight channels
 IEEE 1149.1 JTAG testing support
 IEEE 802.3z Gigabit Ethernet and 
ANSI X3T11 FibreChannel support
 High speed outputs which feature 
programmable output current to 
directly drive dual-terminated line
 2.5 V, 0.25 
μ
 CMOS technology with 
3.3V tolerant I/O
 Direct interface to optical modules, 
coax, or serial backplanes
 Small footprint 19x19 mm, 289-pin 
PBGA
BLOCK DIAGRAM
APPLICATIONS
 High speed serial backplanes
 Gigabit Ethernet links
 FibreChannel links
 Intra-system interconnect
 ASIC to PMD link
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The OctalPHY
TM
 is an octal PHYsical 
layer transceiver ideal for systems 
requiring large numbers of point-to-point 
gigabit links. It provides eight individual 
serial channels capable of operation at 
up to 1.25 Gbps, which may be grouped 
together to form a single 12.5 Gbps 
bidirectional link. 
The OctalPHY includes 8B/10B block 
coding logic (compliant with 802.3z 
Gigabit Ethernet and FibreChannel 
requirements) which produces run length 
limited data streams for serial trans-
mission.
A receive FIFO optionally aligns all 
incoming parallel data to the local clock 
domain, adding or removing IDLE 
sequences as required. This simplifies 
implementation of the upstream ASIC by 
removing the requirement to deal with 
multiple clock domains.
When trunking is enabled, the OctalPHY 
can remove cable skew differences 
equivalent to several meters, presenting 
8-byte data vectors at the receive 
interface exactly as they were trans-
mitted.
EXAMPLE ARCHITECTURE
The first figure on the next page shows 
the OctalPHY in a switch application. 
This implementation uses eight channels 
of 1.25 Gbaud per linecard, requiring 
only 32 signal pins per linecard and 128 
for the switch card, providing up to 
32 Gbps total payload capacity to the 
switch fabric.
The 5-bit DDR interface of the OctalPHY 
saves pins on the switch device. An 
additional OctalPHY operated in trunking 
mode creates a cost effective 10 Gbps 
uplink, capable of directly driving copper 
or various optical transports.
The dotted lines in the figure depict the 
system clock domains. Note that even 
though the recovered clock from any or 
all serial links may be asynchronous to 
the local clock, the OctalPHY bridges 
these domains so that the switch fabric 
and linecards may be designed in only a 
single clock domain.
The OctalPHY creates a highly 
integrated and cost effective physical 
layer solution for Gigabit Ethernet or 
FibreChannel external interfaces.
FIFO
8B/10B
Encoder
10B/8B
Decoder
Clock 
Recovery
Clock Synthesizer
Common Control Logic 
REFCLK
PLL LOCK
MDC/MDIO
Serial
Management
Static Controls
Serial
Receive
Data
Serial
Transmit
Data
10
10
Parallel
Data In
TX Byte
Clock
Transmit Channel A (1 of 8)
Receive Channel A (1 of 8)
Parallel
Data Out
RX Byte
Clock
Serializer
PCS
PCS
Deserialize &
Byte Align
FIFO