A VME barrel shifter system for event reconstruction for up to 3 Gbps signal trains

A VME barrel shifter system for event reconstruction was developed for the SDC (Solenoidal Detector Collaboration) experiment. A special semi-custom switch IC was also developed for it. The system takes in fragments of a physical event through its inputs, combines and reorganizes them, and produces a complete data set of the event from one of its outputs. The complete output data set for successive events will be delivered to waiting computers at its outputs. Up to 3-Gb/s signal trains can be fed through the switch unit. This system is VME 6U compatible and the switching can be controlled by a commercially available VME module. The building blocks of this barrel shifter system are switch modules, O/E and E/O converter modules, and a dedicated crate. The switch modules are a dual-4×4/quad-2×2 unit and an 8×8 unit; they can be combined to deal with a very large number of input/output channels