Development of readout system for FE-I4 pixel module using SiTCP

The ATLAS pixel detector will be replaced in the future High Luminosity-Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) upgrade to preserve or improve the detector performance at high luminosity environment. To meet the tight requirements of the upgrade, a new pixel Front-End (FE) Integrated Circuit (IC) called FE-I4 has been developed. We have then devised a readout system for the new FE IC. Our system incorporates Silicon Transmission Control Protocol (SiTCP) technology (Uchida, 2008 [1]) which utilizes the standard TCP/IP and UDP communication protocols. This technology allows direct data access and transfer between a readout hardware chain and PC via a high speed Ethernet. In addition, the communication protocols are small enough to be implemented in a single Field-Programable Gate Array (FPGA). Relying on this technology, we have been able to construct a very compact, versatile and fast readout system. We have developed a firmware and software together with the readout hardware chain. We also have established basic functionalities for reading out FE-I4.