Overview¶
The ONIX PCIe Host combines the ONIX FMC Host Module with the PCIe-connectivity and bulk-FPGA power provided by the Numato Nereid carrier board.
Acquire from two headstages (or miniscopes)
Breakout board connectivity
8x digital inputs
8x digital outputs
12x analog outputs or inputs (±10V)
Multi-board synchronization and triggering to increase number of headstages and IO
Low-latency closed-loop capabilities (headstage dependent; typically < 100 µs)
Host Module¶
The ONIX FMC Host module provides a host interface for serialized headstages and miniscopes, as well as general purpose analog and digital IO. It is a VITA-57.1 compliant mezzanine board that uses high pin-count FMC connector. In combination with a base FPGA board , it provides host PC communication.
The ONIX FMC Host module.¶
Two deserailizers for any multifunction headstage conforming to the ONIX serialization protocol
12x ±10V analog outputs or inputs. Direction selected via analog switch controllable over the FMC connector.
Analog output are always looped back using the analog inputs.
3x high speed LVDS input pairs
2x high speed LVDS outputs pairs
2x high speed, arbitrary logic-level, singled-ended Hi-Z or 50-ohm clock inputs
1x high speed single ended, 50-ohm clock output
4x MLVDS input or output trigger lines
Numato Nereid¶
The Numato Nereid is a VITA-57 compliant high-density FMC carrier module, which is compatible with the ONIX FMC Host Board. It has a Kintex-7 FPGA, PCIe bus (Gen2 4x), and 4 GB of RAM for PC-independent data buffering. Our gateware bypasses this RAM when its not needed for maximum close-loop performance.
The Numato Nereid Kintex-7 PCIe/FMC carrier module (image source).¶
PCIe Stack¶
We are using a slightly modified version of the excellent, open-source RIFFA project to orchestrate data transmission over the PCIe bus. The PCIe protocol implementation and physical interface is provided by a hard block in the Kintex-7 FPGA.