17,308,672 control/monitor bits
in
1,473,536 registers
in
24,832 FPGAs
in
256 boards
in
16 racks
in
1 room
Correlator boards
contain Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices*
* The
Correlator Chips themselves are actually ASICs custom
factory made for WIDAR
¥ The FPGAs are generic and get their ÔpersonalitiesÕ loaded into them at system
startup. (Filters,
recirculators, LTAs, Ethernet, etc. É)
¥ They contain sets of
registers that may be written to to configure the chip (cause it to
behave in a specific manner).
¥ At the beginning of
an observation, thousands of registers are set to cause the
correlator to become configured as required by the observation.
¥ Conversely, the
registers may be read to obtain the state of the system.
12/2/09 Operator's Meeting
29
WIDAR Correlator Overview - Kevin Ryan