A status report on the SLD data acquisition system

The basic design of the SLD (Stanford Linear Collider Large Detector) data acquisition system and its present status are reviewed. Aspects of the design that take particular advantage of the relatively low e⁺e^- cross section and the low beam crossing rate of a linear collider are explained. The design of the SLD electronics has taken significant advantage of the unique rate characteristic of an e⁺e^- linear collider. This has involved a significant increase in the amount of electronics built into and onto the detector, which has involved the development of custom VLSI (very large scale integration) and many hybrid packages. Most of the data from the detector electronics are heavily time-multiplexed and carried on optical fibers leading to a minimal cable plant. Particular attention is given to the subsystem designs, including the vertex detector, the tracking system, the Cerenkov ring imaging detector, and the liquid-argon and warm-ion calorimeters