A front-end electronics module for the PHENIX pad chamber

Author

Smith, M.C. ; Bryan, W.L. ; Smith, D. ; Jagadish, U. ; McMillan, D. ; Walker, J. ; Young, G.R. ; Oskarsson, A. ; Osterman, L. ; Greene, V. ; Nikkinen, L.

Author_Institution

Oak Ridge Nat. Lab., TN, USA

Volume

46

Issue

6

fYear

1999

Firstpage

1998

Lastpage

2002

Abstract

A front-end electronics module (FEM) has been developed for the PHENIX Pad Chamber. The module´s control functions are performed by the heap manager unit, an FPGA-based circuit on the FEM. Each FEM processes signals from 2160 channels of front-end electronics (FEE). Data readout and formatting are performed by an additional FPGA-based circuit on the FEM. Three external systems provide initialization, timing, and data information via serial interfaces. This paper discusses the application of the heap manager, data formatter, and serial interfaces to meet the specific control and data readout needs of the Pad Chamber subsystem. Unit functions, interfaces, timing, data format, and communication rates are discussed. In addition, subsystem issues regarding mode control, serial architecture and functions, error handling and FPGA implementation and programming are presented.

Keywords

nuclear electronics; semiconductor counters; FPGA-based circuit; PHENIX pad chamber; data information; front-end electronics; front-end electronics module; heap manager unit; initialization; serial interfaces; timing; Atherosclerosis; Circuits; Clocks; Communication system control; Control systems; Detectors; Laboratories; Signal processing; Timing; US Government;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/23.819270

Filename

819270