Serial and parallel optical link architectures for DAQ systems

In this paper we compare a serial and a parallel approach to the design of optical links for HEP experiments. Critical real-time environments as trigger and DAQ systems require low and deterministic latency data channels with performances in the Gbit/s range. Hardware and software overheads make standard protocols an unattractive solution. On the other hand, a custom design can be tailored for the specific experimental requirements. We present a point-to-point parallel optical link architecture based on the INFINEON's PAROLI chip-set and Xilinx FPGAs which sustains a user payload transfer rate higher than 240 Mbyte/s.