Simple PCIe FMC carrier (SPEC)

The FMC PCIe Carrier is an FMC carrier that can hold one FMC card and an SFP connector. On the PCIe side it has a 4-lane interface, while the FMC mezzanine slot uses a low-pin count connector. This board is optimised for cost and will be usable with most of the FMC cards designed within the OHR project (e.g. ADC cards, Fine Delay).

The project is developed in cooperation with CERN as a part of the Open Hardware Repository initiative (www.ohwr.org).

For boards needing more possibilities (e.g. programmable clock resources, fast SRAM, fast interconnect between carriers), the FMC PCIe Carrier or its VME counter part can be used.

Features

4-lane PCIe (Gennum GN4124)
FMC slot with low pin count (LPC) connector
o Vadj fixed to 2.5V
o No dedicated clock signals from Carrier to FMC (only available on HPC pins)
o LPC cheaper than HPC and also easier to mount
o FMC connectivity: all 34 differential pairs connected, 1 GTP transceiver with clock, 2 clock pairs, JTAG
1 Xilinx Spartan6 FPGA (XC6SLX45T)
Simple clocking resources
o 1 10-280 MHz I2C Programmable XO Oscillator (Silicon Labs Si570)
o 1 25 MHz TCXO controlled by a DAC with SPI interface (AD5662)
o 1 20 MHz VCXO controlled by a DAC with SPI interface (AD5662)
o 1 low-jitter frequency synthesizer (TI CDCM61004, fixed configuration, Fout=125MHz)
On board memory
o A 2Gbit DDR3
o 1 SPI 32Mbit flash PROM for multiboot FPGA powerup configuration, storage of the FPGA firmware or of critical data
Front panel containing
o 1 Small Formfactor Pluggable (SFP) cage for fibre-optic transceiver (WhiteRabbit support)
o Programmable LED
o FMC front panel
Internal connectors
o 1 JTAG header for Xilinx programming during debugging
o 2 SATA connector
o 1 mini USB AB (USB-UART bridge)
FPGA configuration. The FPGA can optionally be programmed from:
o GN4124 SPRIO interface (loaded by software driver at startup)
o JTAG header
o SPI 32Mbit flash PROM
o selectable by GN4124 GPIO. Default option would be loading via the SPI flash PROM (stand-alone applications).
Stand-alone features
o External 12V power supply connector
o mini USB connector
o 4 LEDs
o 2 buttons
Optimised for cost