Daily Image
24-04-2017
Measuring UniBoard2
| Submitter: | Sjouke Kuindersma & Gijs Schoonderbeek |
| Description: | One of the major challenges in developing processing platforms for the SKA is cooling the boards. In the past boards are cooled with air, like the processing boards in LOFAR for example. Nowadays experiments have been done with liquid cooling for UniBoard and UniBoard2. However, next generation boards need even more power to cool. In collaboration the DESP and mechanical group are exploring new cooling solutions for the Gemini processing boards in the SKA Low telescope. Flatness and the angle of components are key parameters for mounting water blocks onto a board. To measure this Sjouke Kuindersma has done measurements on UniBoard2 to analyze the flatness and the angle between the board and the FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array). From this measurement was concluded that the FPGAs are flat (<0.02mm) and parallel to the board (<0.1mm). This information is helpful to select the best interface between the FPGA and the water block. Most of the heat resistance is between the top of the device and the water block. As seen in the image the cross-domain knowledge together with the knowledge of CSIRO is used to develop the best processing board for the SKA-Low correlator and beamformer. |
| Copyright: | ASTRON |
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