Reliable and Redundant FPGA Based Read-Out Design in the ATLAS TileCal Demonstrator

The current ATLAS Tile Calorimeter read-out system is scheduled for replacement around 2023 due to old age and higher performance needs. The new proposed system is designed to be radiation tolerant, modular, redundant and reconfigurable. To achieve full detector read-out, Kintex-7 FPGAs from Xilinx will be used, in addition to multiple 10 Gb/s optical read-out links. During 2015/2016, a hybrid demonstrator system including the new read-out system will be installed in one slice of the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter to evaluate the new design. This paper describes different firmware strategies along with their integration in the demonstrator in the context of high reliability protection against hardware malfunction and radiation induced errors.