
6
QUAD FIBRE CHANNEL DEVICE
S2104
October 6, 2000 / Revision E
TRANSMITTER DESCRIPTION
The transmitter section of the S2104 contains a
single PLL which is used to generate the serial rate
transmit clock for all transmitters. Four channels are
provided with a variety of options regarding input
clocking and loopback. The transmitters operate at
1.062 GHz, 10 or 20 times the reference clock fre-
quency.
Data Input
The S2104 has been designed to simplify the paral-
lel interface data transfer and provides the utmost in
flexibility regarding clocking of parallel data. The
S2104 incorporates a unique FIFO structure on both
the parallel inputs and the parallel outputs which en-
ables the user to provide a “clean” reference source
for the PLL and to accept a separate external clock
which is used exclusively to reliably clock data into
the device.
Data is input to each channel of the S2104 nominally
as a 10 bit wide word. An input FIFO and a clock
input, TBCx, are provided for each channel of the
S2104. The device can operate in two different
modes. The S2104 can be configured to use either
the TBCx (TBC MODE) input or the REFCLK input
(REFCLK MODE). Table 1 provides a summary of
the input modes for the S2104.
Operation in the TBC MODE makes it easier for us-
ers to meet the relatively narrow setup and hold time
window required by the 106.25 Mbps 10-bit inter-
face. The TBC signal is used to clock the data into
an internal holding register and the S2104 synchro-
nizes its internal data flow to insure stable operation.
However, regardless of the clock mode, REFCLK is
always the VCO reference clock. This facilitates the
provision of a clean reference clock resulting in mini-
mum jitter on the serial output. The TBC must be
frequency locked to REFCLK, but may have an arbi-
trary phase relationship. Adjustment of internal tim-
ing of the S2104 is performed during reset. Once
synchronized, the user must insure that the timing of
the TBC signal does not change by more than
±
3 ns
relative to the REFCLK.
Figure 6 demonstrates the flexibility afforded by the
S2104. A low jitter reference is provided directly to
the S2104 at either 1/10 or 1/20 the serial data rate.
This insures minimum jitter in the synthesized clock
used for serial data transmission. A system clock
output at the parallel word rate, TCLKO, is derived
from the PLL and provided to the upstream circuit as
a system clock. The frequency of this output is con-
stant at the parallel word rate, 1/10 the serial data
rate, regardless of whether the reference is provided
at 1/10 or 1/20 the serial data rate. This clock can be
buffered as required without concern about added
delay. There is no phase requirement between
TCLKO and TBCx, which is provided back to the
S2104, other than that they remain within
±
3ns of
the phase relationship established at reset.
The S2104 also supports the traditional REFCLK
clocking found in many Fibre Channel applications
and is illustrated in Figure 7.
Half Rate Operation
The S2104 supports full and 1/2 rate operation for all
modes of operation. When RATE is LOW, the S2104
serial data rate equals the VCO frequency. When
RATE is HIGH, the VCO is divided by 2 before being
provided to the chip. Thus the S2104 can support
Fibre Channel and serial backplane functions at both
full and 1/2 the VCO rate. See Table 3.
Parallel to Serial Conversion
The 10-bit parallel data handled by the S2104 device
should be from a DC-balanced encoding scheme,
such as the 8B/10B transmission code, in which in-
formation to be transmitted is encoded, 8 bits at a
time, into a 10-bit transmission character and must
be compliant with ANSI X3.230 FC-PH (Fibre Chan-
nel Physical and Signaling Interface).
The 8B/10B transmission code includes serial en-
coding and decoding rules, special characters, and
error control. Information is encoded, 8 bits at a time,
into a 10 bit transmission character. The characters
defined by this code ensure that short run lengths
and enough transitions are present in the serial bit
stream to make clock recovery possible at the re-
ceiver. The encoding also greatly increases the like-
lihood of detecting any single or multiple errors that
might occur during the transmission and reception of
data
1
.
1. A.X. Widner and P.A. Franaszek, "A Byte-Oriented DC Bal-
anced (0,4) 8B/10B Transmission Code," IBM Research Report
RC9391, May 1982.