DOC E10523 Rev.D
Interactive Circuits And Systems Ltd. 2000
10
3.8 FPDP Interface
A connector on the front panel of the ICS-130, designated P3, is compatible with the ICS
FPDP Interface. The ICS Front Panel Data Port (FPDP) is an industry standard
interconnection for board to board or system to system data transfer. This interface
standard has gained acceptance in the industry for use in a broad range of signal
processing applications. It is directly compatible to CSPI's SC130/P100, Mercury's
RIN-T/ROUT-T, SKY's SKYburst 160 and Ixthos' IXI2S32-F interfaces.
The FPDP is a high performance 32 bit parallel interface configured with a ribbon cable to
connect boards or systems together. The simple and well-defined physical and electrical
interface provides the basis for integrating many different types of boards and sub-systems.
The maximum clock rate of the FPDP interface is 20 MHz when using the TTL Strobe
signal, providing a sustained data rate of up to 80 MBytes/s. When using the optional
PECL-level differential Strobe signals, the interface supports clock rates up to 40 MHz for a
sustained data rate of up to 160 MB/s. The ICS-130 provides the optional PECL Strobe,
and can typically be run up to 50 MHz.
The ICS-130 FPDP interface design allows multiple boards to be connected on the same
FPDP cable. Data from all selected channels are inserted into the FPDP Data frame in the
correct time slot. It is necessary to connect a cable between the P4 Local Bus connectors of
each ICS-130 in order to ensure that all boards are correctly synchronized (see section 3.7
above). One ICS-130 is configured as the Sampling Master for this purpose, by
programming Control Register bit CR<6>, and generates the timing signals used by the
other (Slave) boards. The same board must also be configured as FPDP Master using
Control Register bit CR<8>. The board designated as Master must be at one physical end
of the FPDP and Local Bus cables.
3.9 Light-Emitting Diodes
The ICS-130 is fitted with a set of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) which indicate board
operation and error conditions. The LEDs are provided for diagnosis of major operational
problems and can only be viewed when the board is on an extender card.
The diodes are located on the component side of the board (the right hand side when the
board is installed in vertical orientation), between the VME connectors. Their position on
the board is shown in Fig. 3. There are four LEDs installed in a line. Table 3.1 describes
the ICS-130 LEDs starting from the LED closest to the P1 VME connector (i.e. the
uppermost LED when the board is installed in normal vertical orientation).
Note that the intensity of illumination of each LED will depend on the frequency of the
access to that interface. It may not be possible to detect infrequent accesses to an
interface.
