Daily Image
01-05-2017
Testing Gemini POC
| Submitter: | Leon Hiemstra (Astron) / Andrew Brown CSIRO / Gijs Schooderbeek (Astron) |
| Description: | The image shows the testing of the Gemini POC (Proof Of Concept). The first achievement was a flashing LED. Although a simple flashing LED looks simple, a lot of engineering is required to achieving this. Therefore, a flashing LED gives much joy to the engineers. The flashing LED shows that all power supplies are working and the FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) can be configured. The power delivery network for a modern FPGA is challenging because of the high core supply current (100A) and the requirement that all 11 power supplies are switched on in a defined sequence. The optical interfaces on the board have been tested as well. These interfaces have speeds of 25Gbps per transceiver of which 52 are implemented on Gemini resulting in a total throughput of 1.3 Tbps. To gain more knowledge about the power consumption and the heat distribution of the board, a heater design has been made which uses as much resources from the FPGA as possible to maximize its power usage. In the image the thermal image is shown. The test proved that the power supplies can handle the required power (almost 100W) to the FPGA. Now that most concepts are verified we can send out the design files for the next Gemini version and start working on the firmware designs for the SKA CSP-LOW Correlator and Beamformer. |
| Copyright: | ASTRON / CSIRO |
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