Because of their extremely high data transfer rates, integrated hardware management and optimised cooling, AdvancedTCA and MicroTCA have been chosen by physicists as technologies of the future. For their applications, however, physicists require special functions that are not defined in standard xTCA systems. To address this situation the xTCA WG1 working group for physics was set up in early 2009 under the aegis of PICMG. xTCA, originally specified for telecommunications, is finding ever wider acceptance in the market, for example in medicine, automation and, with the WG1 working group, also in research.
WG1 defines a yet higher power density on the AdvancedTCA blades and thus requires still more cooling. The group for MicroTCA also requires a rear I/O board cage. In both AdvancedTCA and MicroTCA special clock and trigger signals and identical dimensions for front and rear boards are required.
Schroff is an active member of this new working group and has already developed a first MicroTCA test system with rear I/O. This MicroTCA test system meets the first draft status of the new specification. The link between front and rear I/O boards is a board-to-board connection. With this system the user can test the board mechanics and the functioning of the rear I/Os, including the integration of these newly-defined boards into the existing shelf management, during normal operation.
The front slots of the test system, with one MCH slot (single or double, full-size) and six AdvancedMC slots (double mid-size) correspond to the MicroTCA specification PICMG MicroTCA.0 R1.0. The rear configuration consists of six rear I/O slots (double mid-size), conforming to PICMG Physics WG1. A 300 W PSU (double full-size) is inserted into the system from the front. The power switch module for voltage distribution to the AdvancedMC modules and the MCH is integrated onto the backplane as a plug-on module. The fans can be controlled via the private I²C bus of the MCH and thus ensure optimised heat dissipation.