ADC FMC board clock synchronization mechanism
The fmc-adc-100m14b4cha board is equipped with an on-board crystal oscillator from Silicon Labs. The Si570 (datasheet) can be programmed via the I2C interface to provide frequencies in the range 10MHz - 1.4GHz. This crystal oscillator drives the clock pins of the ADC chip on-board the mezzanine cards. When using multiple ADC mezzanine cards in a large experimental facility, it may be necessary to make sure the measurements they provide are synchronized. This synchronization can be provided via White Rabbit.
This page contans the specifications and implementation details of the mechanism used to synchronize multiple ADC mezzanine cards with a sub-nanosecond(ns) accuracy.
Functional specification
In order to synchronize two or more ADC mezzanine cards with sub-ns accuracy, the clock synchronization should be able to:
- if White Rabbit is present and enabled, use the reference clock it provides to adjust the functioning of the on-board Si570;