Daily Image
13-04-2022
LOFAR2.0 Station FPGA firmware implementation cake moment
| Submitter: | Eric Kooistra |
| Description: | On Wednesday 6-th April 2022 Reinier tested the digital beamformer code on UniBoard2 hardware in the Dwingeloo Test Station (DTS), using 4 FPGAs and … it worked OK! This achievement marks the finish of the implementation phase of the FPGA firmware code for the LOFAR2.0 Station! During the last two years all firmware engineers, at different moments in time, have contributed to the FPGA firmware code. The implementation started with the ADC interface code, then we added the subband filterbank, then the subband correlator and finally the digital beamformer. First the implementation only ran on a single FPGA, but now it also runs synchronously on multiple FPGAs. This is necessary, because in a LOFAR2.0 Station we need 16 FPGAs to process signals from all the antennas of the station. The subband correlator has already been extensively used to validate the performance of the analogue frontend. The development work is not done yet, though, because now we enter a phase of extended tests and integration tests with the rest of the Station. The photo shows the subrack with UniBoard2 and all contributors to the firmware. From left to right Jan, Job, Jonathan, Eric (with the cake), Reinier, Pieter, Daniel and Paulus. Not there are Leon, scrum master Carla, and not visible is Gijs who took the photo. |
| Copyright: | ASTRON |
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