Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture Research Articles

An ATCA Embedded Data Acquisition and Control System for the Compass tokamak

The Compass tokamak is currently being installed in Prague, Czech Republic. Its control and data acquisition system is being redesigned and built from scratch and it will be based on novel digital technologies. The proposed hardware for the controller is based on the PICMG 3.0 Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture ™ (ATCA) standard. The platform contains one ATCA controller with a Gigabit Ethernet interface, up to 12 ATCA Digitizer-Generator-Processor (DGP) cards and trigger and clock inputs, all on a 12U shelf. The multi-core × 86-based General Purpose Processor (GPP) controller will be connected to the DGP cards by Peripheral Component Interconnect Express ™ (PCIe) point-to-point links through the ATCA backplane. Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) signal processing will be shared by the DGP cards using the built-in Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and the controller’s × 86 general processor. Eleven Aurora ™ 2.5 Gbit/s links allow to further parallelize the execution of code among several FPGAs. In order to guarantee real-time execution of the control codes a framework based on Linux and the Real-Time Application Interface (RTAI) will be used. This will explore the features provided by the new multi-core technologies. Synchronization between the subsystems will be guaranteed by a real-time event network. The interface to the system will be provided by the FireSignal control and data acquisition system. This will allow the operators and diagnostic coordinators to configure the hardware, prepare the discharges, pre-program events of interest and follow results from the discharge. FireSignal will also orchestrate the data flow coming from the different diagnostics into the database and to registered data clients.

ATCA: its performance and application for real time systems

The Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (ATCA), describes a high bandwidth, high connectivity, chassis based architecture designed principally to appeal to the telecommunications industry. The object of the exercise was to closely connect compute engines within the chassis to multiple user services brought in at the front panel. This maps closely to the needs of real time systems and the main points of the architecture are reviewed and discussed in that light. The performance of an ATCA backplane has been tested and measured using a Backplane Tester developed within a 10 Gb/s Ethernet switch project that was an early adopter of the ATCA standard. Some results from these tests are presented.

ATCA-Based Open-Architecture Router Prototype

We have developed an open-architecture router (OAR) prototype using industrial standard hardware, software components, and interfaces. The prototype is built with Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (ATCA)-compliant hardware. Carrier-grade Linux (CGL) is used as the operating system. A new OAR configuration method is described where industrial standard hardware and software interfaces are used. Basic forwarding functions with routing protocol processing are demonstrated for the first time.

Telecom fabrics go fine-grain

ATCA (advanced telecom computing architecture) baseboards equipped with advanced mezzanine cards (AMCs) are poised to become the dominant platform. for high-availability telecom applications. ATCA's high throughput, multi-protocol support, high power capability, hot 'swapability' and integrated system management provide an ideal baseline telecom fabric. AMC enhances the flexibility of that fabric by enabling designers to customise, scale, upgrade, and service their ATCA-based telecom systems with a finer degree of granularity. The resulting fabric structure offers an unprecedented level of flexibility, helping to reduce not only the cost of product development, but also the time to market, cost of repairs, upgrades, spare maintenance and the impact of individual component failures. By combining general-purpose ATCA carrier cards with application-specific AMC modules, designers can create versatile telecom systems that can be readily upgraded, scaled and serviced in the field. It is expected that blades combining an ATCA carrier with AMC modules will be the best fit (vis-à-vis fixed-function ATCA cards) for up to 80% of telecom applications.