LHC Communication Infrastructure: Recommendations from the working group

The LHC Working Group for Communication Infrastructure (CIWG) was established in May 1999 with members from the accelerator sector, the LHC physics experiments, the general communication services, the technical services and other LHC working groups. It has spent a year collecting user requirements and at the same time explored and evaluated possible solutions appropriate to the LHC. A number of technical recommendations were agreed, and areas where more work is required were identified. The working group also put forward proposals for organizational changes needed to allow the design project to continue and to prepare for the installation and commissioning phase of the LHC communication infrastructure. This paper reports on the work done and explains the motivation behind the recommendations

Readout system test benches

We propose to develop and exploit versatile multi-purpose Personal Computer-based Test Benches to support the evaluation and design of the basic elements required for digital front-end readout and data transmission systems for an LHC experiment. These test benches will have modular hardware facilities for the operation of new readout system components under realistic conditions, and will implement advanced modern software engineering concepts. They will support components such as fast ADCs, hybrid fibre-optic transceivers, and the prototype VLSI systolic array and data-flow processors currently being developed in national research laboratories and by the emerging European HDTV industry. These efforts would also lay the foundations for projects involving the development of custom-designed VLSI circuits