A new PCI card for readout in high energy physics experiments

Author

Floris, Michele ; Cicalo, Corrado ; Marras, Davide ; Usai, Gianluca ; David, André

Author_Institution

Cagliari Univ., Italy

Volume

3

fYear

2003

fDate

19-25 Oct. 2003

Firstpage

1680

Abstract

Recently some high energy physics experiments started to adopt readout systems based on the PCI architecture. In this context a new PCI card that can be adapted to several readout schemes has been designed. The card contains a large 64 MB local buffer, programmable FPGA logic and a PLX PCI bridge. The solution to use a PCI bridge external to the programmable logic allows to greatly simplify projects at the level of the on-board local bus. The card is presently used as the basic readout unit of the NA60 experiment. In this context, coupling it to different mezzanine cards it is possible to create interfaces to VME/CAMAC modules or to custom front-end electronics as for the case of the silicon vertex detector. Moreover, it is used as a readout test system for the ALICE muon chambers.

Keywords

add-on boards; high energy physics instrumentation computing; nuclear electronics; programmable logic devices; readout electronics; 64 MB; ALICE muon chambers; NA60 experiment; PCI architecture; PCI card; PLX PCI bridge; VME/CAMAC modules; basic readout unit; custom front-end electronics; high energy physics experiments; local buffer; mezzanine cards; on-board local bus; programmable FPGA logic; readout schemes; readout systems; readout test system; silicon vertex detector; Bridges; Computational fluid dynamics; Data acquisition; Detectors; Field programmable gate arrays; Mesons; Physics; Programmable logic arrays; Programmable logic devices; Silicon;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record, 2003 IEEE

ISSN

1082-3654

Print_ISBN

0-7803-8257-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/NSSMIC.2003.1352202

Filename

1352202