Patent ID: 7366939
Filing Date: 2008-04-29
Classification: G01R

Abstract:
1. A system for providing precise timing control between circuit cards in a multi-chassis system, comprising: a plurality of chassis conforming to a standardized specification, the plurality of chassis including a master chassis and one or more slave chassis, each chassis including specification-compliant slots and a backplane of a same design version for providing electrical connections between circuit cards coupled to the slots; a specification-compliant master star trigger card couplable to one of the slots in the master chassis for providing a reference clock and non-specification control signals to other specification-compliant circuit cards coupled to other slots in the master chassis over pre-existing specification-compliant matched-length reference clock traces and a bus on the backplane that is user-configurable according to the specification, respectively, and for providing the reference clock and non-specification control signals to the one or more slave chassis over matched-length cabling external to the chassis; a specification-compliant slave star trigger card couplable to one of the slots in each slave chassis for receiving the reference clock and non-specification control signals from the master star trigger card and providing the reference clock and non-specification control signals to other specification-compliant circuit cards coupled to other slots in the slave chassis over the pre-existing specification-compliant matched-length reference clock traces and the bus on the backplane that is user-configurable according to the specification, respectively; and one or more specification-compliant circuit cards couplable to slots in each of the plurality of chassis for receiving the reference clock and the non-specification control signals at about the same time and operating with precise timing control in accordance with the reference clock and control signals.