PCI - HIPPI Source

PMC - HIPPI Source

Prototype board of the PCI HIPPI Destination The final version will be in standard PCI small format.

PCI - PMC

The PCI and PMC versions use exactly the same circuit on a different format printed ircuit board and as such have the same electrical only the physical dimensions are different

Specifications:

The PCI - HIPPI Source is made to the specifications from the NA 48 physics experiment at CERN. The hardware is developed, under supervision from CERN, by the Institute of Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy ( INRNE ) in Sofia.

Bandwidth Measurements:

The bandwidth of the interfaces depends for a large part on the PCI implementation of the host machine. Most of the measurements so far have been done on Digital Equipment Alpha machines. The figures given are sustained speed but measured without software. Including the software driver will give figures that should be about 5 % lower. Data generator is the Avaika HIPPI Tester

The interface itself should be able to follow the HIPPI speed of 100 Mbytes/s for block sizes as large as target memory available.

HIPPI Source from Alpha 400 (Avanti)Aver. = Min. 25 Mbytes/s
HIPPI Source from Alpha 600 (Alcor) Aver. = Min. 25 Mbytes/s
HIPPI Source from Digital AXBVME 160Aver. = Min. 24 Mbytes/s

Remark:

The architecture of the PCI - HIPPI Sorce is the mirror part of the PCI - HIPPI Destination, and should be able to reach the same speed. For the moment the speed of the HIPPI Source is limited by the AMCC S5933 PCI Interface circuit on 25 Mbytes/s. This is an error in the internal Host to PCI FIFO that should be corrected in the next version of the circuit.

Project Status

A number of working PCI prototypes are available since February 1996 and are used for software development. It is hoped to have thePCI interface commecially available during summer 1996. The PMC unit will follow December 1996

PCI-HIPPI Source Components List

This is one of the CERN High Speed Interconnect pages - 2 July 1996 - Arie van Praag