Hardware Demonstrator of the MDT Trigger Processor for the ATLAS first-level muon trigger at the HL-LHC

The novel MDT Trigger Processor (MDTTP) is a fundamental component of the ATLAS first-level muon trigger upgrade, designed to meet High-Luminosity LHC requirements. The MDTTP blade will be implemented as an ATCA blade compatible with the Apollo ATCA platform. The board will comprise two modules, the Service Module, common to all Apollo applications, providing the required infrastructure; and the application-specific Command Module, executing all the processing and external communication tasks. A hardware demonstrator for the the MDTTP Command Module has been designed and built. The demonstrator includes two large FPGAs, high-speed FireFly optical transceivers and other peripheral hardware. The demonstrator can be operated both in a standalone bench mode or in a ATCA shelf, connected to the Service Module. It supports various clocking scenarios and a large number of I/O data connections. We present here the results of various demonstrator tests, together with the future development plans. The demonstrator serves as a baseline for the upcoming ATLAS MDTTP prototype, whose design will also be presented.