PANDA DAQT and FrontEnd Electronics Workshop, Rauischholzhausen Castle

An ATCA telecommunication shelf provides power, cooling and high-speed interconnections to up to 14 PANDA Compute Nodes. A single Shelf Manager supervises the installed boards and regulates the power distribution and temperature inside the shelf. The Shelf Manager relies on a local controller on each Compute Node to relay sensor alerts, provide hardware information and power requirements etc. An IPM Controller based on an Atmel microcontroller was designed for this purpose, and a prototype was produced. The neccessary firmware is being developed to allow local communication with the components of the Compute Node and remote communication with the Shelf Manager conform to the ATCA specification. An overview of the intended functions of the IPM Controller and a status report will be given.