There are physics research centres based around the world that are engaged in work on particle acceleration, photon research and generally with particle physics.
The data systems used today to run these research institutions, such as the 30 km long particle accelerator at CERN near Geneva, are VMEbus systems.
For the next generation of systems, the particle physicists group has committed itself again to an open standard. In future, MicroTCA systems will be used.
The main reasons for changing from VMEbus to MicroTCA are that MicroTCA has implemented an extensive remote management that detects all possible faults on plug-in boards, in the power supply systems and in the ventilation system.
The MicroTCA basic specification forms a very good basis that covers most of the requirements of this research group. However, a number of additional features are required that are not implemented in the MicroTCA basic specification.
For this reason the PICMG working group "xTCA for Physics" was formed to define a MicroTCA sub-specification, MTCA.4.
Note:
This specification has not yet been released. Technical content mentioned on these pages may be subject to alteration.
What are the additional features that the "Advanced Physics Community" for MicroTCA requires?
MicroRTM
In its MTCA.0 basic specification MicroTCA does not define rear transition modules (RTM). However, the physicists require RTMs to accommodate the large number of I/Os on the front panel, which in turn requires the use of RTM modules for the MicroTCA chassis. Separation of the digital and analogue I/Os is also desirable.
Special clock and trigger signals
MicroTCA defines 3 telecommunications clocks. Rev.2.0 of the AdvancedMC specification defines a further 4 telecom clocks and one fabric clock for PCIe (PCI Express). The advanced physics community, however, requires still more high-precision clock and trigger signals.