New developments in next generation platform standards for physics instrumentation & controls

The development of xTCA for Physics standard extensions began in June 2009 with the formation of hardware and software technical subcommittees under the PICMG industry consortium. This was a new experiment in standards collaboration since up to this time labs had developed standards without members from industry and PICMG membership consisted only of companies supporting telecom and some military applications. Since then the physics hardware subcommittee, formally known as IO, Synchronization and Timing has completed two specifications which have been approved with a third guideline document in preparation; while the software subcommittee known as Software Architectures and Protocols has worked on a broad roadmap of guidelines aimed at increasing the level of compatibility (interoperability) between similar functional modules designed by different laboratories or companies. The subcommittees are currently supported by 9 labs that have joined PICMG plus approximately 40 companies that joined the subcommittees. This paper reviews specific progress of standards and guidelines to date; briefly summarizes some of the key infrastructure product developments made by the lab-industry collaboration; and lists examples of new lab initiatives underway to test the standards against a range of applications. It also discusses the key motivations, challenges and strategies involved in bringing a new standard into broad usage so as to reap maximum benefits to both the collaborating laboratories and supporting industries.