Title :
The ALICE TPC readout control unit
Author :
Gutiérrez, C. González ; Campagnolo, R. ; Junique, A. ; Musa, L. ; Alme, J. ; Lien, J. ; Pommersche, B. ; Richter, M. ; Roed, K. ; Röhrich, D. ; Ullaland, K. ; Alt, T.
Author_Institution :
CERN, Geneva
Abstract :
The front end electronics for the ALICE time projection chamber (TPC) consists of about 560000 channels packed in 128-channel units (front end card). Every front end card (FEC) incorporates the circuits to amplify, shape, digitize, process and buffer the TPC pad signals. From the control and readout point of view the FECs are organized in 216 partitions, each being an independent system steered by one readout control unit (RCU). The RCU, which is physically part of the on-detector electronics, implements the interface to the data acquisition (DAQ), the trigger and timing circuit (TTC) and the detector control system (DCS). It broadcasts the trigger and clock information to the FECs, performs the initialization and readout via a high bandwidth bus, and implements monitoring and safety control functions via a dedicated I2C-like link. This paper addresses the architecture and the system performance of the RCU
Keywords :
data acquisition; nuclear electronics; position sensitive particle detectors; proportional counters; readout electronics; time projection chambers; timing circuits; trigger circuits; ALICE time projection chamber readout control unit; I2C-like link; data acquisition; detector control system; front-end card; front-end electronics; high bandwidth bus; on-detector electronics; time projection chamber pad signals; trigger-and-timing circuit; Broadcasting; Circuits; Clocks; Control systems; Data acquisition; Detectors; Distributed control; Shape; Signal processing; Timing;
Conference_Titel :
Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record, 2005 IEEE
Conference_Location :
Fajardo
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-9221-3
DOI :
10.1109/NSSMIC.2005.1596317
