DOC E10523 Rev.D
Interactive Circuits And Systems Ltd. 2000
12
4. HARDWARE PREPARATION
This section provides information necessary for hardware preparation of both single
board and multiple board ICS-130 systems. Figure 3 shows the position of switch and
jumper (wire link) blocks on the ICS-130.
Prior to board installation, the user should examine the VMEbus chassis where the ICS-130
board is to be installed. Some VMEbus signals are of the "daisy chain" type, i.e. they are
routed through each board in turn using one connector pin for input to a board, and another
pin for output; the signals in question are BG0IN/OUT, BG1IN/OUT, BG2IN/OUT,
BG3IN/OUT and IACKIN/IACKOUT. For slots where boards will not be installed, one of two
mechanisms is normally employed to ensure continuity for these signals. Either the user
must install a set of jumpers on the VMEbus backplane, or the connectors are of a type
which can sense the presence of a board and make or break the connection accordingly. If
the backplane in use is a jumpered type, the user should remove all jumpers for the slot
where an ICS-130 will be installed. All unused slots between slot 1 and the slot where the
ICS-130 is installed must be jumpered to ensure correct operation.
4.1 System Configuration
The ICS-130 is designed to allow simultaneous sampling across all channels on a
board, and also across all channels on multiple boards. To facilitate multiple board
clusters, timing and external clock/trigger signals are bussed on the front panel P4
Local Bus cable. In addition, if the Front Panel Data Port (FPDP) is used for data
output, multiple ICS-130 boards may be bussed on the same FPDP cable.
Two multiple board cluster configurations are possible:
•
All ICS-130 boards on one Local Bus cable and on one FPDP cable
•
All ICS-130 boards on one Local Bus cable, but on two or more FPDP cables
The latter case addresses the situation where a single FPDP cable would not have
sufficient throughput, or where the FPDP/R- (receiver) board has insufficent
throughtput and multiple receiving boards must be used.
For the purposes of correctly driving and terminating bussed front panel signals, there
are four possible hardware switch configurations for an ICS-130 board. These are:
•
Master - the board drives timing signals and terminates received signals
•
Mid-Slave - the board does not terminate or drive signals except data lines
•
End-Slave - the board terminates timing signals and drives data lines
•
Stand-alone Master - the board drives and terminates all signals