Drivers and Software for MTCA.4

The MicroTCA.4 crate standard is a powerful electronic platform for digital and analog signal processing. Besides its hardware modularity, it is the software reliability and flexibility as well as the easy integration into existing software infrastructures that will drive the widespread adoption of this new standard. The DESY MicroTCA.4 User tool kit (MTCA4U) provides drivers, and a C++ API for accessing the MicroTCA.4 devices and interfacing to the control system. The PCIexpress driver is universal for basic access to all devices developed at DESY. Modularity and expandability allow to generate device-specific drivers with a minimum of code, inheriting the functionality of the base driver. A C++ API allows convenient access to all device registers by name, using mapping information which is automatically generated when building the firmware. A graphical user interface allows direct read and write access to the device, including plotting functionality for recorded raw data. Higher level applications will provide callback functions for easy integration into control systems, while keeping the application code independent from the actual control system in use.