ICALEPCS2011 - List of Authors (Iglesias Gonsálvez, S.)

Paper

Title

Page

Open Hardware for CERN’s Accelerator Control Systems

554

E. Van der Bij, P. Alvarez, M. Ayass, A. Boccardi, M. Cattin, C. Gil Soriano, E. Gousiou, S. Iglesias Gonsálvez, G. Penacoba Fernandez, J. Serrano, N. Voumard, T. Włostowski
CERN, Geneva, Switzerland

The accelerator control systems at CERN will be renovated and many electronics modules will be redesigned as the modules they will replace cannot be bought anymore or use obsolete components. The modules used in the control systems are diverse: analog and digital I/O, level converters and repeaters, serial links and timing modules. Overall around 120 modules are supported that are used in systems such as beam instrumentation, cryogenics and power converters. Only a small percentage of the currently used modules are commercially available, while most of them had been specifically designed at CERN. The new developments are based on VITA and PCI-SIG standards such as FMC (FPGA Mezzanine Card), PCI Express and VME64x using transition modules. As system-on-chip interconnect, the public domain Wishbone specification is used. For the renovation, it is considered imperative to have for each board access to the full hardware design and its firmware so that problems could quickly be resolved by CERN engineers or its collaborators. To attract other partners, that are not necessarily part of the existing networks of particle physics, the new projects are developed in a fully 'Open' fashion. This allows for strong collaborations that will result in better and reusable designs. Within this Open Hardware project new ways of working with industry are being tested with the aim to prove that there is no contradiction between commercial off-the-shelf products and openness and that industry can be involved at all stages, from design to production and support.

Slides TUBAULT04 [7.225 MB]

THCHMUST04

Free and Open Source Software at CERN: Integration of Drivers in the Linux Kernel

1248

J.D. González Cobas, S. Iglesias Gonsálvez, J.H. Lewis, J. Serrano, M. Vanga
CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
E.G. Cota
Columbia University, NY, USA
A. Rubini, F. Vaga
University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

We describe the experience acquired during the integration of the tsi148 driver into the main Linux kernel tree. The benefits (and some of the drawbacks) for long-term software maintenance are analysed, the most immediate one being the support and quality review added by an enormous community of skilled developers. Indirect consequences are also analysed, and these are no less important: a serious impact in the style of the development process, the use of cutting edge tools and technologies supporting development, the adoption of the very strict standards enforced by the Linux kernel community, etc. These elements were also exported to the hardware development process in our section and we will explain how they were used with a particular example in mind: the development of the FMC family of boards following the Open Hardware philosophy, and how its architecture must fit the Linux model. This delicate interplay of hardware and software architectures is a perfect showcase of the benefits we get from the strategic decision of having our drivers integrated in the kernel. Finally, the case for a whole family of CERN-developed drivers for data acquisition models, the prospects for its integration in the kernel, and the adoption of a model parallel to Comedi, is also taken as an example of how this model will perform in the future.

Slides THCHMUST04 [0.777 MB]

Paper	Title	Page
TUBAULT04	Open Hardware for CERN’s Accelerator Control Systems	554
	E. Van der Bij, P. Alvarez, M. Ayass, A. Boccardi, M. Cattin, C. Gil Soriano, E. Gousiou, S. Iglesias Gonsálvez, G. Penacoba Fernandez, J. Serrano, N. Voumard, T. Włostowski CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
	The accelerator control systems at CERN will be renovated and many electronics modules will be redesigned as the modules they will replace cannot be bought anymore or use obsolete components. The modules used in the control systems are diverse: analog and digital I/O, level converters and repeaters, serial links and timing modules. Overall around 120 modules are supported that are used in systems such as beam instrumentation, cryogenics and power converters. Only a small percentage of the currently used modules are commercially available, while most of them had been specifically designed at CERN. The new developments are based on VITA and PCI-SIG standards such as FMC (FPGA Mezzanine Card), PCI Express and VME64x using transition modules. As system-on-chip interconnect, the public domain Wishbone specification is used. For the renovation, it is considered imperative to have for each board access to the full hardware design and its firmware so that problems could quickly be resolved by CERN engineers or its collaborators. To attract other partners, that are not necessarily part of the existing networks of particle physics, the new projects are developed in a fully 'Open' fashion. This allows for strong collaborations that will result in better and reusable designs. Within this Open Hardware project new ways of working with industry are being tested with the aim to prove that there is no contradiction between commercial off-the-shelf products and openness and that industry can be involved at all stages, from design to production and support.
	Slides TUBAULT04 [7.225 MB]

THCHMUST04	Free and Open Source Software at CERN: Integration of Drivers in the Linux Kernel	1248
	J.D. González Cobas, S. Iglesias Gonsálvez, J.H. Lewis, J. Serrano, M. Vanga CERN, Geneva, Switzerland E.G. Cota Columbia University, NY, USA A. Rubini, F. Vaga University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy
	We describe the experience acquired during the integration of the tsi148 driver into the main Linux kernel tree. The benefits (and some of the drawbacks) for long-term software maintenance are analysed, the most immediate one being the support and quality review added by an enormous community of skilled developers. Indirect consequences are also analysed, and these are no less important: a serious impact in the style of the development process, the use of cutting edge tools and technologies supporting development, the adoption of the very strict standards enforced by the Linux kernel community, etc. These elements were also exported to the hardware development process in our section and we will explain how they were used with a particular example in mind: the development of the FMC family of boards following the Open Hardware philosophy, and how its architecture must fit the Linux model. This delicate interplay of hardware and software architectures is a perfect showcase of the benefits we get from the strategic decision of having our drivers integrated in the kernel. Finally, the case for a whole family of CERN-developed drivers for data acquisition models, the prospects for its integration in the kernel, and the adoption of a model parallel to Comedi, is also taken as an example of how this model will perform in the future.
	Slides THCHMUST04 [0.777 MB]