TCLink: A Timing Compensated High-Speed Optical Link for the HL-LHC experiments

The High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) will pose unprecedented requirements in terms of timing distribution. The overall stability has to reach picosecond-levels between tens of thousands of end-points. To mitigate long-term environmental variations in the high-speed optical links, phase monitoring and online/offline compensation might be necessary. The Timing Compensated Link (TCLink) is a protocol-agnostic FPGA core designed for Xilinx devices that provides monitoring and picosecond-level phase adjustment capabilities with no need for external components. The features can be customized for different user application requirements. A proof-of-concept of TCLink on a setup composed by a Xilinx FPGA evaluation board, the Versatile Link+ and the lpGBT prototype chip will be demonstrated.