ACEX4041 COM Express Type 10
AcroPack Carrier Board
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This section describes the functionality of the circuitry used on the carrier board. Refer to Block
Diagram as you read this section.
The ACEX4041 is a non-intelligent carrier board built on a Mini-ITX industry
standard form factor that allows the use of modules to create a multi-
functional computer system main board with a lot of flexibility.
COM Express Type 10 Mini interface.
This interface provides the computing functions such as CPU, Memory, PCIe
Bus, SATA, USB, Serial, and high-performance graphics. CPU modules are
highly scalable meaning the you can choose the CPU speed and the memory
size based on your system requirements. Saving you time and money for
development. COM Express Type 10 Mini CPU modules uses a standard set of
signals and peripherals on a standard COM Express Type 10 interface. The
ACEX4041 uses a sub-set of those signals and peripherals.
Note:
For best performance use CPU’s with 4 PCI Express lan
es 0/1/2/3
configured as x4.
PCIe Switch
The PCIe switch is a 9 port 12 lane PCIe Gen 2 switch. It expands the single
host PCIe x4 port to 6 independent x1 ports, one for each AcroPack site and
one for each Ethernet controller. The host port consists of four PCIe lanes (x4
port). AcroPack sites and Ethernet controllers have one lane (x1 port) each.
PCIe Switch Clock Buffer.
The host clock from the CPU module is goes to a PCIe 1:4 clock buffer. Three
of the four clocks go to the PCIe Switch. The fourth clock is passed through to
another clock buffer. The second clock buffer is a 1:8 or 8-Ch PCIe Gen3 clock
buffer. This clock buffer provides an independent clock for each AcroPack site
and for each Ethernet controller.
AcroPack Sites
The ACEX4041 carrier provides four AcroPack sites. AcroPack sites are I/O
expansion sites for use of AcroPack Modules developed by Acromag. These
modules provide a wide variety of analog I/O, digital I/O, Communication,
counter timers, and FPGA computing functions.
Slot Addressing
The ACEX4041 carrier is hard wired to slot Address 0. The slot address is 8 bits
long and consists of 3 bits hard wired to identify the site on the carrier where
the AcroPack module is installed and 5 bits hard wired to be set at address 0.
The CPLD will serialize the slot address and transmit the address to the
AcroPack module as requested by the AcroPack module. The processes of
reading the slot address is typically initiated by host software.
