At the European Spallation Source, a range of control systems have been deployed using MicroTCA and PLCs. MicroTCA has become the standard platform for the fast controls needed to operate various sub-systems, such as LLRF, Machine Protection Systems, Timing Distribution and Beam Instrumentation applications.
The talk will give an overview of the current status of MicroTCA at ESS and...
The MTCA workshop in Japan 2025 (MTCAWS in Japan 2025) was held from August 27 to 29 at KEK in person, while the last Japanese workshop in 2021 was held in a virtual format under COVID-19 conditions. The goal of this workshop is to boost the application of MTCA in Japan by exchanging the information and experiences. We welcomed the lecturer from DESY, who gave us a tutorial lecture on FPGA...
The High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) project at CERN is set to introduce a series of major upgrades across the LHC complex, including the implementation of crab cavities, applied for the first time in a hadron machine. These cavities are designed to increase beam luminosity by compensating for the geometric luminosity reduction caused by the crossing angle at the interaction...
Short introduction on EMCOMO Solutions and Vadatech, new AMC modules and MicroTCA crates, furher strategy on new FPGAs, CPUs and ADC/DACs.
The Lodz University of Technology, Department of Microelectronics and Computer Science is involved in the development of MicroTCA.4, MicroTCA.4.1 and the future standards from 2007 onwards. Since that time, we have developed various MicroTCA.4 components including Intelligent Platform Management, Advanced Mezzanine Cards (AMCs), Rear Transition Modules (RTMs) for data acquisition and...
Several companies engaged in the development and construction of quantum computers have adopted MicroTCA as the platform for their control systems, taking advantage of the proven architecture and ecosystem established within the MTCA.4 community. A significant number of these implementations utilize the Double Full-Size AMC form factor to provide increased front panel area and to enable the...
Within the PETRA IV project at DESY, a new high-resolution Beam Position Monitor (BPM) system based on MTCA.4 technology is being developed to meet the stringent requirements of the low-emittance lattice. Building on the successful prototype phase, the system has now been introduced under the commercial name Libera Brilliance X, a new member of Instrumentation Technologies’ Libera family. The...
Modern accelerator-based user facilities are taking advantage of recent artificial intelligence (AI) boom. Regardless a newly planned facility or an existing one, all should implement a well-suited control system to support advanced tasks with AI technologies. This talk illustrates an architecture design to cover as much possible future application supports at reasonable cost. The talk will...
Increasing power dissipation and computational demands have made the supporting infrastructure of MicroTCA systems a key factor for reliable and efficient operation. System architects must address challenges in thermal management, power distribution, monitoring, and electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) to maintain stable performance. A controlled thermal environment—achieved through...
The recently ratified VITA 93 QMC standard introduces an unprecedented level of modularity, flexibility, and scalability. Building on lessons learned from previous standards, QMC blends their proven strengths with new capabilities designed for the future. This presentation provides an overview of the key features and advantages of the QMC standard, including support for next-generation...
This work presents an experimental implementation of a clock and PPS distribution system using the uTCA backplane to achieve synchronized operation of multiple AMC modules. The point-to-multipoint lines of the backplane allow a single master AMC, connected to a White Rabbit (WR) network link, to share its reference clock and PPS signals with all slave AMCs in the chassis. This enables the...
The DAMC-X3TIMER, a dedicated MTCA.4 AMC module, serves as the central component of the Timing and RF-Distribution System for the PETRA IV accelerator. Initial hardware prototypes have been produced, with the next revision now in production.
This presentation outlines the planned timing system infrastructure, emphasizing the DAMC-X3TIMER’s role in the PETRA IV accelerator complex. It also...
KVG Quartz Crystal Technology GmbH is a professional frequency control products manufacturer, focusing on research, development, production and sales. High-end crystal oscillators are our specialty. We cooperate with DESY for the production and test of the Master Oscillator (MO) module, the Local Oscillator Generation (DeRTM-LOG) module and X-Band middleware. The MO provides 1.3 GHz reference...
Accurate synchronization between detector controllers is important for low-noise readout in focal-plane arrays used for astronomical observations. ESO’s MicroTCA based detector controller (NGCII) uses White Rabbit to enable sub-nanosecond timing and timestamp distribution in a PTP environment. This allows us to accurately synchronize the main sequencer clock from which all detector control...
The University of Hamburg, in collaboration with DESY, is developing an electrical ground-support equipment phasemeter, or phasemeter simulator, based on the MicroTCA.4.1 standard, for the space-based gravitational-wave detector LISA, funded by the German Aerospace Agency (DLR).
The main task of the phasemeter is to extract the phase of various laser interferometer beat note signals with...
Continuous Wave (CW) mode is becoming increasingly relevant for FELs, in contrast to a pulsed operation mode as it is currently done at the EuXFEL accelerator.
This transition requires a new approach to timing and data readout concepts. One potential solution involves using double-buffered memory in the firmware, with buffer swapping controlled by a timing system trigger. Initial developments...
Introduction to Vadatech DAQ Toolsuite, new DAQ software services available to accelerate your development cycle using Vadatech FPGA and FMC’s.
Managing large-scale, long-lifecycle FPGA projects at scientific facilities demands a framework that is both flexible and stable. To meet this challenge, the MSK group at DESY has developed 'fwk', an open-source FPGA framework. While its initial implementation dates back to before 2015, 'fwk' has since evolved into a collaborative tool used by various scientific national labs and companies...
The Dresden Advanced Light Infrastructure (DALI) going to be build at HZDR is a accelerator-driven light source. It combines intense THz radiation, infrared beams, positrons and ultra-fast electron diffraction to a unique source for cutting-edge science.
In this presentation, the DALI machine concept will be introduced. It is used to derive requirements for the machine control and beam...
Developing SoC and FPGA-based applications for MicroTCA AMC involves significant hardware costs. It requires a complete hardware ecosystem with a Chassis, an MCH, and one or several AMCs, presenting a steep learning curve for new developers.
This contribution presents the integration of two different cost-effective boards into DESY's FPGA Firmware Framework (FWK). The goal is to provide a...
In particle accelerator facilities, on-board flash memory is exposed to radiation that can cause bit corruption over time, making it preferable to load applications over the network rather than store them locally. This talk presents a method for flashless, network-based booting of MicroTCA Advanced Mezzanine Cards (AMCs) using U-Boot and standard network protocols. By loading the entire...
This talk gives an overview of the first steps into using the widely used IT infrastructure monitoring application Zabbix to remotely monitor and even maintain/control larger installations of MTCA (and PC/server) based hardware. The goal of this project is to utilize the standardized IPMI interface of the MTCA products in combination with the open source Zabbix software to build dashboards as...
The modern system on chip that can support your project via:
- integrated ADC and DAC for control and data acquisition
- array of massive compute DSP engines
- high speed data links and network on chip
The European Spallation Source will be the most powerful accelerator-based neutron source, and the standard chosen for the ESS Linear accelerator fast data acquisition systems is MicroTCA.
The ESS accelerator has a big set of different MicroTCA based systems: Machine Protection, Low Level RF, Beam Diagnostics, Motion systems based on Ethercat and more. Besides that, different models of CPUs...
The “2025 MicroTCA/ATCA International Workshop for Large Scientific Facility Control” was held by Chongqing University (CQU), in Chongqing, China, on September 15-17 2025. The workshop was held on-site and online at the same time. More than 90 participants from 18 institutes and 13 companies joined the workshop. 41 talks were presented, which included hardware, firmware and applications in...
In the time since the last MicoTCA workshop we have achieved laboratory first-light with the final two detector families to be supported by our MicroTCA.4 based general detector controller, NGCII. Besides CCDs, the workhorse detector for ground-based astronomy, we have also brought up Geosnap, a fully digital detector transmitting its pixel data through high-speed digital signals. Meanwhile,...
This talk reviews the DESY MicroTCA card, DAMC-DS5014DR, designed for high-speed multi-channel data acquisition and signal generators. Based on the AMD Zynq Ultrascale RFSoC ZU47DR, it features eight 14-bit, 5 GSPS ADCs, eight 14-bit, 8.92 GSPS DACs, extensive programmable logic (PL) resources, and an ARM-processing system (PS). In this AMC card, the AC or DC coupling options precondition the...
At SCK CEN in Belgium, the MYRRHA project aims to build the world's first Accelerator-Driven Subcritical reactor (ADS). The initial phase centers on implementing a 100MeV, 4mA CW superconducting linear proton accelerator – with the unique technical challenge: the maximum allowable beam trip duration is less than 3 seconds. The accelerating field stability requirement is ≤0.1% and ≤0.1 degrees...
The DESY DAMC-FMC1Z7IO is a cost-optimised IO controller and processing board in AMC formfactor with a front panel site for FMC modules.
The module features a ZYNQ-7000 SOC that makes the AMC a networked computer node with extensive application capability.
Now manufactured under license by D-TACQ Solutions, DAMC-FMC1Z7IO also supports an MTCA.4 RTM with Z3 D1.0 signaling.
This allows the...
Getting a new type of AMC up and running usually has a significant entry barrier.
Especially for unfamiliar boards it is important to have a reliable tool chain ready to have a smooth start.
The ChimeraTK framework provides libraries and tools that cover the whole range from first communication and configuration of the board to full application development with integration to DOOCS, EPICS,...
DESY is currently planning to upgrade the third generation synchrotron light source PETRA III to a state of the art diffraction limited storage ring.
The new machine PETRA IV will make use of MTCA not only for the accelerator itself but also for the photon science experiments.
In my presentation I will show possible applications of MTCA for experiment control and data acquisition at photon...
