ReflexCES XpressSX AGI-FH400G

  • Card information:

    • Vendor: ReflexCES in cooperation with CESNET

    • Name: XpressSX AGI-FH400G

    • Ethernet ports: 1x QSFP-DD

    • PCIe conectors: Edge connector + optional HSI connectors

    • FPGA Card Website

  • FPGA specification:

    • FPGA part number: AGIB027R29A1E2VR0 or AGIB027R29A1E2VR3

    • Ethernet Hard IP: F-Tile (up to 400G Ethernet)

    • PCIe Hard IP: R-Tile (up to PCIe Gen5 x16)

NDK firmware support

  • Ethernet cores that are supported in the NDK firmware:
  • PCIe cores that are supported in the NDK firmware:

    • R-Tile in the PCIe Module

    • See the <NDK-APP_root_directory>/ndk/card/agi-fh400g/config/card_conf.tcl file for supported PCIe configurations.

  • Makefile targets for building the NDK firmware (valid for NDK-APP-Minimal, may vary for other apps):

    • Use make 400g1 command for firmware with 1x400GbE (default).

    • Use make 200g2 command for firmware with 2x200GbE.

    • Use make 100g4 command for firmware with 4x100GbE.

    • Use make 50g8 command for firmware with 8x50GbE.

    • Use make 40g2 command for firmware with 2x40GbE.

    • Use make 25g8 command for firmware with 8x25GbE.

    • Use make 10g8 command for firmware with 8x10GbE.

  • Support for booting the NDK firmware using the nfb-boot tool:

    • YES, starting with the nfb-framework version 6.16.3.

Note

To build the NDK firmware for this card, you must have the Intel Quartus Prime Pro installed, including a valid license.

Board Revision

This card exists in multiple revisions. The default revision for the firmware build is BOARD_REV=0. The correct revision for the firmware build can be selected using the Makefile parameter BOARD_REV, for example as follows:

$ cd <NDK-APP_root_directory>/build/agi-fh400g
$ make BOARD_REV=1

Allowed values of BOARD_REV parameter

  • BOARD_REV=0 - The first prototypes use FPGA part number AGIB027R29A1E2VR0.

  • BOARD_REV=1 - The second board revision uses FPGA part number AGIB027R29A1E2VR3.

Board Test Scripts

The NDK firmware enables easy testing of the FPGA card. The firmware includes several generators and switchable loopback paths (usually part of the the Gen Loop Switch (GLS) module). A simplified diagram showing the testing capabilities can be found below.

../../../_images/ndk_loopback.drawio.svg

Prerequisites

  • The card must be connected to a Linux server.

  • The nfb-framework package must be installed on this server.

  • The NDK driver must be in debug mode (mi_debug - see the warning at the bottom of this readme).

  • The NDK firmware must be loaded in the FPGA card.

  • You must have Python 3 including the pytest framework installed: pip3 install --user pytest pytest-depends pytest-html.

The test scripts themselves are written in Python 3 and use the Pytest framework. This makes it possible to run the test with a single command, see example:

$ pytest --html=test_pcie.html --self-contained-html ndk/cards/agi-fh400g/bts/test_pcie.py

The whole test takes approximately 14 minutes. The test script displays test results and generates an HTML file containing a detailed description of the test results.

Warning

The test script requires an NDK driver in debug mode! To enable the debug mode, you must first remove the driver with the command “sudo modprobe -r nfb” and then add it with the correct flag: “sudo modprobe nfb mi_debug=1”.