A PCI transient recorder module for the JET magnetic proton recoil neutron spectrometer

A transient recorder module is being developed as part of the upgrade for the magnetic proton recoil neutron (MPRu) spectrometer for the JET-Enhanced Performance Project. The MPRu will use a 32-channel focal plane detector with laminated scintillators of the so-called Phoswich type each read out by two PM tubes. The new detector will enable increase of the measurement sensitivity by several orders of magnitude compared with the present system. To attain the specific requirements of this diagnostic, a new PCI 200 MSPS transient recorder module with four independent Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) channels was developed. The module includes a Texas Instruments® TMS320C64xx™ family Digital Signal Processor (DSP), a Xilinx® FPGA and an ADC front-end. An inboard memory buffer implemented with up to 512 MB allows the acquisition for large periods. Real-time digital signal processing algorithms can be applied to the input signals in the FPGA and the DSP. Multiplatform device drivers and a visualization program were developed to access the module memory where the pulses and time data are stored.