NAT-MCH-PHYS80 MTCA Carrier Hub for MTCA.4 and MTCA.4.1 applications

The NAT-MCH-PHYS80 addresses the requirements for higher bandwidth to both AMCs and the MCH-RTM as well as for optical and copper uplinks in PCIe based MTCA.4 systems. These features make it ideal for large control and data acquisition applications such as high and low energy physics research institutions.

The NAT-MCH-PHYS80 consists of the NAT-MCH-M4 base plus the NAT-MCH-CLK-PHYS plus an 80-port PCIe Gen3 switch. Combined with the Rear Transition Module with quad-core Intel® Xeon® E3 CPU this is the most powerful single-slot solution for management, data switching, and processing that is available for MTCA.4 and MTCA.4.1 systems

Special low jitter, low latency clock module for physics applications

The NAT-MCH-CLK-PHYS clock module is specially designed for physics applications, providing a very low-jitter and low-latency clock at CLK1 and CLK2 and a fixed mean 100MHZ PCIe clock. The NAT-MCH-PHYS80 is capable of sourcing an external clock from, or delivering an internal clock to, two SMA inputs or outputs on the front panel. This allows installations of many MTCA systems to be synchronized to a central clock source in a very elegant and easy-to-use way.

PCIe Gen3 switch providing optical or copper uplinks and virtual clustering

The PCIe hub module provides an 80-port PCIe Gen3 switch that allows each of the 12 AMCs in a MicroTCA.4.x system to be connected by a x4 link. It provides either two x8 or one x16 optional optical PCIe uplink(s) to external high performance servers or other MTCA.4 systems (product variant -PHYS80-UPLNK). The MCH-RTM is connected by an x16 link. 

The PCIe switch also accommodates higher bandwidths, i.e. x8 or x16, to a reduced number of AMC slots if the backplane provides appropriate connectivity.

Finally, the PCIe switch provides the ability to establish up to four virtual PCIe clusters and assign the AMC slots to these. The up to four PCIe Root Complexes can be any of the AMC-CPUs, the NAT-MCH-RTM CPU or an external PC.

Rear Transition Module with quad-core Intel® Xeon® E3

When used together with its Rear Transition Module (RTM), the NAT-MCH-PHYS80 also connects the optional quad-core Intel® Xeon® E3 COM Express module with a x16 link to the PCIe Gen3 switch. As the fully user-accessible quad-core Intel Xeon E3 on the NAT-MCH-RTM can act as a PCIe root complex, this x16 PCIe link overcomes the bottle neck between the root complex and many PCIe based I/O payload AMCs, which in most MTCA.4 systems are connected by a x4 link only.

Single slot solution for system management and PCIe root complex

The NAT-MCH-PHYS80 can be equipped with SSD storage that will then turn the combination of NAT-MCH-PHYS80 and NAT-MCH-RTM with e.g. COMex-E3 into a true single-slot fully user-accessible root complex at PCIe Gen3 speed.

Management for Low Level RF (LLRF) backplane

MTCA.4.1 allows the use of an optional LLRF backplane behind the standard AMC backplane. One of its purposes is to distribute high precision RF and CLK signals among eRTMs and standard RTMs.

Using a NAT-MCH-PYS80 with a NAT-MCH-RTM-BM-FPGA allows managing eRTMs as well as uRTMs and the additional power modules (RTM-PM) connected to the LLRF backplane.

Redundant Environments

The NAT-MCH-PHYS80 fully supports redundant management and power environments. Frequent exchange of the internal databases with the secondary MCH and a heart beat mechanism ensure an immediate switch-over from the primary to the secondary MCH whenever it becomes necessary.

The NAT-MCH-PHYS80 can handle up to four -48V, +24V or AC power modules, such as NAT-PM-DC840, NAT-PM-DC600LV, NAT-PMAC600, NAT-PM-AC600D, NAT-PM-1000, or a combination of them for N+1 configurations.

The NAT-MCH-PHYS80 together with the NAT-MCH-RTM-BM (LLRF backplane management) can handle in addition up to two rear power modules, such as NAT-RPM-AC600 (providing variable bipolar voltages for the LLRF backplane) or any standard MTCA power supply.

Software Support and Updates

The NAT-MCH-PYS80 can be monitored and controlled with any RMCP-based System Management Software (SMS) like NATview or Ipmitool.

Furthermore, using the NAT-MIB the NAT-MCH-PHYS80 can also be integrated into environments based on the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). The NAT-MCH-PHYS80 can be configured using either uploadable text based script files or via the integrated web interfaces using a standard web browser.

Finally, the integrated debug and configuration facilities can be accessed via a serial console or using Telnet. Customers registering for the firmware update service are automatically notified by e-mail when a new firmware version becomes available.

Family of MCH products

• NAT-MCH supporting PCIe, SRIO (RapidIO), XAUI, GbE, USB, JTAG-Switch
• NAT-MCH-PHYS for Physics and MTCA.4 Applications
• NAT-MCH-PHYS80 with Zone-3 connector for connection to MCH-RTMs with optional LLRF backplane management support, optional optical PCIe uplinks
• NAT-MCH-RTM with options -BM, -FPGA and COMex-E3 (quad-core Xeon, Core-i7, -i5 and -i3 on request)
• NATview

Applications:

• Particle accelerators
• Synchrotron experiments
• Colliding beam accelerators
• Neutrino oscillation
• Plasma control
• Fusion research