PCIe hot-plug event handling tasks using PICMG standard interrupt mechanism for ATCA based instrumentation

• Published in: Fusion engineering and design 2017-11, Vol.123, p.703-706
• Main Authors: Carvalho, Paulo F., Santos, Bruno, Correia, Miguel, Combo, Álvaro M., Rodrigues, António P., Pereira, Rita C., Fernandes, Ana, Cruz, Nuno, Sousa, Jorge, Carvalho, Bernardo B., Batista, António J.N., Correia, Carlos M.B.A., Gonçalves, Bruno
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acquisition; AdvancedTCA; Bus interconnections; Chips (electronics); Control; Control equipment; Controllers; Data acquisition systems; Embedded systems; Event handling; Experiments; Firmware; Fusion; Hardware; Hot-plug; Hot-swap; Instruments; Linux; Nuclear power plants; Nuclear reactors; Reconfiguration; Redundancy; Reliability; Shutdowns; Upgrading
• ISSN: 0920-3796; 1873-7196
• DOI: 10.1016/j.fusengdes.2017.05.122

•Hot-plug allows device insertion and removal with system powered on.•Hot-swap allows endpoints to be inserted or removed from a PCIe system gracefully.•AdvancedTCA specification copes with high availability requirements.•Control and Data Acquisition Systems are a key component in Fusion experiments.•Nuclear Fusion aims to be a future alternative source for energy production. The Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (AdvancedTCA®) specification implements important key features such as high reliability, high availability, redundancy and serviceability for control and data acquisition instrumentation fault condition, hardware malfunction, firmware updates and hardware reconfiguration. Red Hat Enterprise Linux and corresponding kernels already have built-in mechanisms and embedded software for Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) hot-plug support that allows automatic removal of PCIe device nodes and associated device files from the system providing a fast replacement strategy for damaged cards without requiring an entire system shutdown. This paper describes handling of PCIe hot-plug events at a software middle level using the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG) standard interrupt mechanism. The handling tasks can be accomplished by AdvancedTCA® cards chipsets with support for PCIe hot-plug features, Linux hot-plug embedded controller and Red Hat built-in device manager module. The goal is to implement a fast hardware replacement solution without system shutdown providing high availability capabilities to AdvancedTCA® control and data acquisition instrumentation specially directed for large fusion experiments such as International Thermonuclear Experiment Reactor (ITER).