Many science and engineering projects require large amounts of data to be aggregated and transmitted to remote servers. However, most existing non-integrated solutions are not optimized for a specific interface type and suffer from several limitations, such as limited device-to-server data rates, high cost, large size, and unnecessary complexity. The Octo-Optical Data Aggregation System receives high-speed data from attached sensor modules, compresses it, and transmits it to connected servers using eight low-cost optical fibers. The server connection can achieve up to 80Gbps, and the device is able to connect up to 143 client sensors at 1Gbps per connection. The connections are bidirectional, enabling mixed sensor/output operation. The device implements a powerful Xilinx Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) using standard commercial manufacturing processes on a custom 12-layer Printed Circuit Board (PCB). The PCB uses cost-effective high-density technologies and is built on a thicker 2.5mm stackup to meet trace size and impedance requirements. An onboard microcontroller manages the FPGA support infrastructure, including the eight power supplies, temperature sensors, and diagnostic LED indicators. The other onboard peripherals and flexible FPGA resources enable other applications, such as routing, specialized computing, and very high-speed logic analysis. Subject: Electrical Engineering, Sensors, High-Speed Communications, Field-Programmable Gate Array
