PCI card with DMA capabilities for digital imaging detectors

Abstract

A readout card based on the standard PCI 32-bit/33 MHz bus has been developed for the fast readout of digital systems. The PCI card exploits a PCI bridge chip with Direct Memory Access (DMA) capabilities which permits to obtain a measured throughput up to 90 Mbytes/s. The PCI card has two high-density 80-pin connectors for data I/O; an external system acquisition card can be connected through two flat cables. A powerful programmable logic FPGA provides the management of the I/O lines; by default, 32 input and 32 output single-ended lines (CMOS) plus six LVDS lines are provided, but the FPGA allows several different I/O configurations depending on the specific application requirements. Another programmable device manages the control and status signals of the local bus and the Synchronous Static RAM available for data storage. Due to its main features like the configurable I/O patterns and the high throughput, this PCI card is suitable for applications like the fast readout of imaging acquisition systems.