February 9, 2009 -- High bandwidth data transfers have led to migration from existing packet interface standards to advanced ones. v4.2 has, for many years, remained an industry standard for packet based transfers from link layer to PHY layer. However, due to increasing bandwidth requirements, there is a need to migrate to SPI 5, which supports a data rate four times that of SPI 4.2. This article discusses the architectural changes and IP re-usability scope for modifying an existing SPI 4.2 Transmitter and Receiver IP Core.

SPI 4.2 and SPI 5 have a great deal of functional similarity which makes this IP migration smoother. This article considers an existing SPI 4.2 IP core and examines the architectural changes and re-usability of the sub-modules. The addition of a few modules, which are a part of SPI 5 protocol, is also highlighted.

By Kaushal D. Buch. (Buch is with eInfochips, Ltd.)