Experience powering Xilinx Virtex-7 FPGAs

The MP7 processor card is an all-optical signal processor based on mid-range Xilinx Virtex-7 FPGAs (XC7VX485T or XC7VX690T) in a 1927-pin package. The current version of the card uses the large serial bandwidth of these FPGAs to provide a 0.75+0.75Tbps bidirectional interface, although changes are currently being implemented to push the bandwidth to 0.94+0.94Tbps. The MP7 card was designed before Virtex-7 Engineering Silicon was available and so a lot of design work relied on preliminary documentation and discussion with Xilinx engineers. The MP7 card was, therefore, the first card in the CMS experiment to use Xilinx 7-series FPGAs. The experience of designing for and powering the Virtex-7 are discussed, along with lessons learned. The challenges associated with cooling an FPGA dissipating of-the-order 40W is also discussed