This Answer Record discusses where to find information on how to power unused transceviers and tries to address some commonly asked questions.
Solution
Virtex-4 FX The Virtex-6 RocketIO User's Guide contains a section on "Powering Unused MGTs" in Chapter 6 that describes the powering and filtering requirements of the MGT: http://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/user_guides/ug076.pdf Virtex-5 LXT and SXT Families The Virtex-5 FPGA GTP Transceiver User's Guide contains specific use cases on how transceivers need to be powered based on reference clock and calibration information routing within the FPGA. This information can be found in the Providing Power section of the user's guide: http://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/user_guides/ug196.pdf Virtex-5 FXT and HXT Families The Virtex-5 FPGA GTX Transceiver User's Guide contains specific use cases on how transceivers need to be powered based on reference clock and calibration information routing within the FPGA. This information can be found in the Providing Power section of the user's guide: http://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/user_guides/ug198.pdf Spartan-6 LXT The Spartan-6 FPGA GTP Transceiver User's Guide containts specific use cases on how transceivers need to be powered based on use model which can be found in the Managing Used and Unused GTP Transceivers section: http://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/user_guides/ug386.pdf Virtex-6 There are two different transceivers that can be included in a Virtex-6 FPGA: the GTX or GTH transceiver.The GTX transceiver has recommendations in the Virtex-6 FPGA GTX User's Guide under the Managing Unused Transceivers section: http://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/user_guides/ug366.pdf GTH Transceivers do not have seperate recommendations for powering unused transceivers, so all transceivers should be powered per the guidelines in the Virtex-6 GTH Transceiver User's Guide in the Power Supplies and Filtering section: http://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/user_guides/ug371.pdf