The MicroTCA fast control board for generic control and data acquisition applications in HEP experiments

TL;DR

This paper introduces the MicroTCA Fast Control board (uFC) designed for high-performance control and data acquisition in HEP experiments, featuring FPGA-based architecture, high-speed links, and flexible I/O options.

Contribution

The paper presents the design, implementation, and testing of a versatile MicroTCA control board tailored for HEP experiments, including application results at the High Energy Photon Source in China.

Findings

Successful prototype testing demonstrating performance

Effective data transmission at up to 10 Gbps

Application validation at a major HEP facility

Abstract

To provide the generic clock, trigger and control function and fulfill the data transmission performance requirement in high energy physics (HEP) experiments, a MicroTCA Fast Control board (uFC) was developed based on the Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) specification. Built around the Xilinx Kintex-7 FPGA, the uFC provides users with a platform with data memory, reference clock, trigger and SFP+ (Small Form-factor Pluggable) connections that are required in general experiment. In addition, it has access to two on-board FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC) sockets with a large array of configurable I/O and high-speed links up to 10 Gbps. This paper presents test results from the first set of pre-production prototypes and reports on the application in High Energy Photon Source in China.