AO4ELT5 Proceedings
FPGA based microserver for high performance real-time computing in Adaptive Optics
Patauner, Christian (Microgate), Biasi, Roberto (Microgate), Andrighettoni, Mario (Microgate), Angerer, Gerald (Microgate), Pescoller, Dietrich (Microgate), Porta, Fabio (Microgate), Gratadour, Damien (LESIA)
The real-time data pipeline of ELT-oriented adaptive optics control systems requires very large communication bandwidth, flexible interfacing, high computational power and memory bandwidth, low latency and low jitter. A potential solution to all these challenging requirements has been developed by Microgate in the frame of the GreenFlash project and is based on two specifically developed FPGA boards with PCIe backplane interface with excellent energy efficiency. The µXComp board is dedicated to high throughput computational tasks, with particular focus on the memory bandwidth, which is often the limiting factor for heavy matrix-vector multiplication, while still featuring flexible, high bandwidth interfaces. The second board, called µXLink, is dedicated to the smart interfaces and features a system-on-chip ARM processor enabling the implementation of a standalone Microserver concept. In the Microserver, the µXLink board interconnects and arbitrates the operation of various acceleration and interface boards, e.g. µXComp boards or GPU accelerators, without requiring a host computer. Such Microserver concept can be adapted to satisfy the requirements of different AO configurations, being compatible with various wavefront cameras and deformable mirrors, and perform also other dedicated computation and control tasks within an AO system. We report the design, the performances and the tests performed on the hardware realized so far.
DOI: 10.26698/AO4ELT5.0121- Proceeding PDF
