ROACH_Architecture - david-macmahon/wiki_convert_test GitHub Wiki
The ROACH architecture can be broken down into 3 major and relatively independent subsystems. A ROACH board consists primarily of the FPGA subsystem, the PowerPC subsystem, and the monitor/management subsystem.
Monitor/Mangement Subsystem
The MonMan subsystem of the ROACH board provides remote power control and system status monitoring. An Actel AFS600 mixed-signal FPGA (U60) implements the core functionality. The Actel FPGA handles the ATX power supply's soft power toggling and monitors the voltage and current draw of key power supplies on the board using on-chip ADCs. It can shut down power to the board in the event of a power supply being out of range. This subsystem is powered from the ATX auxiliary 5V power rail, and thus remains on even after a board powerdown.
Remote access to the Actel FPGA is enabled by the Lantronix XP1001001 XPORT (J28). The XPORT encapsulates serial I/O with the Actel in an Ethernet format, which allows switched-network communication with the FPGA.
PowerPC Subsystem
The PowerPC subsystem is intended to be the primary command/control mechanism for the ROACH board, along with moderate-bandwidth data I/O with the Xilinx FPGA. Its primary component is the AMCC PowerPC 440EPx embedded processor (U1). The PowerPC's functions are supported by DDR2 DRAM (J8), a Spansion 16x32M flash memory (U42), and a National DP83865 10/100/1000 Ethernet PHY (U58). An Xilinx XC2C256 CPLD (U54) acts as an interface to additional I/O capability for the PowerPC, including a MMC/SD memory card socket (J17).
FPGA Subsystem
ROACH is built around the primary FPGA (U15) for its signal processing capabilities. Either a Xilinx Virtex 5 XC5VLX110T or XC5VSX95T can be populated. The FPGA is connected to a number of peripherals and I/O interfaces; high-bandwidth data I/O is accessible via 2 Tyco Z-DOK+ 40-pair host connectors (P5, P7) and 4 CX4 ports for XAUI/10GbE (P3). Memory is available in both DDR2 DRAM (J15) and QDRII+ SRAM (U17, U63).