An implementation of module management controller for MicroTCA data processing system

On the basis of full compatibility with advanced telecommunications computing architecture (ATCA) standard, micro telecommunications computing architecture (MicroTCA) standard has a evident advantage over ATCA in terms of space, cost and scalability. The MicroTCA standard has become a popular platform in high energy physics. For the advanced mezzanine card (AMC) installed in the MicroTCA chassis, module management controller (MMC) is a prerequisite to fulfill its function. Although there are many MMC solutions, most of their firmware work in polling mode and rarely use the real-time operating system (RTOS). In order to overcome the lack of real-time performance in polling MMC solution, the novel firmware is developed based on FreeRTOS, which is an open source real-time operating system. This firmware implements the basic functions of MMC, such as hot swap, power management, firmware upgrade, and adds the feature of serial command debugging. To verify the difference in real-time performance between the FreeRTOS and the polling solutions, the interrupt reaction time test is carried out on both solutions. The test shows that the average interrupt reaction time of the FreeRTOS solution is about 300 ms shorter than that of the polling method. This result proves that the FreeRTOS-based solution can significantly improve the real-time performance of transaction processing.