The MicroTCA Fast Control Board for Generic Control and Data Acquisition Applications in HEP Experiments

To provide the generic clock, trigger, and control function and fulfill the data transmission performance requirement in high-energy physics experiments, a microtelecommunications computing architecture fast control board (uFC) was developed based on the advanced mezzanine card specification. Built around the Xilinx Kintex-7 field-programmable gate array (FPGA), the uFC provides users with a platform with a data memory, reference clock, trigger, and SFP+ (small form-factor pluggable) connections that are required in general experiments. In addition, it has access to two on-board FPGA mezzanine card sockets with a large array of configurable input/ouput and high-speed links up to 10 Gb/s. This paper presents test results from the first set of preproduction prototypes and reports on the application in high-energy photon source in China.