Power consumption varies a lot with the number of ports and the FPGA platform. The "ac701_proto_v1" example design for the Xilinx Artix7-200T has 4 SPI/UART po

Power consumption varies a lot with the number of ports and the FPGA platform. The "ac701_proto_v1" example design for the Xilinx Artix7-200T has 4 SPI/UART ports and 4 gigabit ports (a mix of RGMII and SGMII). That design hits around 150-700 mW [1], depending on how many gigabit ports are active. One way we've saved a lot of power is by skipping the Ethernet PHY. Last time I looked, a 100BASE-T PHY was about 130 mW each and a 1000BASE-T PHY was about 480 mW each. Double that because both ends of the link need a PHY, and that roughly lines up with your numbers. The upside of using a PHY is that "real Ethernet" can drive hundreds of meters of cable. The PHY chip is effectively a converter from the local interface (*MII) to the long-distance interface (10/100/1000BASE-T). But on a cubesat or a small UAV, cables are short, so you can skip that conversion to save power on both ends. The downside is that the many *MII flavors are not mutually compatible. Regarding the Gecko connectors, the very simple reason to avoid screws is floorspace. The "Handle" payload interface unit [2] has 12 Gecko connectors in a 4x3 grid. The screw mounts add enough width that it wouldn't fit in the allotted space. The retention clips are quite robust, though you do need a small tool to remove them. There's no reason you couldn't have screws on one end of the cable and clips on the other. Regarding the Tyco connectors, it's definitely a compromise that we might revisit. Size and signal integrity were the main concerns. The space industry is quite risk-averse, so something with provable signal integrity for 1250 Mbaud SGMII signals was a necessity. The GadgetSmyth product line is quite interesting. I had not heard of that company before. I'm surprised that their 1000BASE-T pigtails are not using twinax or STP cable, but the switch cards are definitely aligned with what we're trying to accomplish. [1] https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2020/all2020/174/ https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2020/all2020/174/ [2] https://github.com/the-aerospace-corporation/satcat5/blob/main/examples/slingshot/ATR-2022-01270%20-%20Slingshot%20Payload%20Manual.pdf https://github.com/the-aerospace-corporation/satcat5/blob/ma...