A Software Suite for the Radiation Tolerant Giga-bit Transceiver - Slow Control Adapter

The future upgrades of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) will increase its luminosity. To fulfill the needs of the detector electronic upgrades and in particular to cope with the extreme radiation environment, the GBT-SCA (Giga-Bit Transceiver - Slow Control Adapter) ASIC was developed for the control and monitoring of on-detector electronics. To benefit maximally from the ASIC, a flexible and hardware interface agnostic software suite was developed. A hardware abstraction layer - the SCA software package - exploits the abilities of the chip, maximizes its potential performance for back-end implementations, provides control over ASIC configuration, and enables concurrent operations wherever possible. An OPC UA server was developed on top of the SCA software library to integrate seamlessly with distributed control systems used for detector control and Trigger/DAQ (Data AcQuisition) configuration, both of which communicate with the GBT-SCA via network-attached optical link receivers based on FPGAs. This paper describes the architecture, design and implementation aspects of the SCA software suite components and their application in the ATLAS experiment

The Embedded Local Monitor Board upgrade proposals

The Embedded Local Monitor Board (ELMB) is a microcontroller based plug-in module usingthe CANopen communication protocol. It has been widely used in LHC systems and experimentsfor slow-control and monitoring purposes, providing multiple, galvanically isolated analog inputs,and multiple digital inputs and outputs. While the module showed excellent performance in thepast 15 years, a new design is deemed necessary due to the obsolescence of some components ofthe existing ELMB and the higher radiation tolerance required for the planned HL-LHC upgrade.Three development paths, one fully backward compatible and two conceptually different solutionswith different levels of radiation tolerance are presented

SPIDR: a read-out system for Medipix3 & Timepix3

The realisation of the Timepix3 chip opened the way for new opportunities in research areas such as particle tracking with both semiconductor sensors and gas filled time projection chambers, electron microscopy and imaging mass spectrometry. To exploit the full capability of the Timepix3 chip, Nikhef developed a compact read-out system, called SPIDR that can deal with the high data output of 80 Mhits per chip per second. The main read-out board connects to both 10 Gb Ethernet and 1 Gb Ethernet devices. The latter obviously at a reduced rate. The main board connects to individual chip-carrier boards via a standard FMC connector. The system is designed such that support for other readout chips is foreseen via reprogramming of the FPGA. Besides the Timepix3 chip also the Medipix3 chip is currently supported. Both the main board and the chip carrier boards are cooled, via the housing and a fan to obtain a stable temperature of around 40 ±  0.2 °C for the Timepix3 chips. We will present the system and the results obtained with the LHCb beam telescope at CERN and proton radiography data obtained with a time projection chamber based on GEM technology

The CMS Magnetic Field Measuring and Monitoring Systems

This review article describes the performance of the magnetic field measuring and monitoring systems for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector. To cross-check the magnetic flux distribution obtained with the CMS magnet model, four systems for measuring the magnetic flux density in the detector volume were used. The magnetic induction inside the 6 m diameter superconducting solenoid was measured and is currently monitored by four nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) probes installed using special tubes at a radius of 2.9148 m outside the barrel hadron calorimeter at ±0.006 m from the coil median XY-plane. Two more NRM probes were installed at the faces of the tracking system at Z-coordinates of −2.835 and +2.831 m and a radius of 0.651 m from the solenoid axis. The field inside the superconducting solenoid was precisely measured in 2006 in a cylindrical volume of 3.448 m in diameter and 7 m in length using ten three-dimensional (3D) B-sensors based on the Hall effect (Hall probes). These B-sensors were installed on each of the two propeller arms of an automated field-mapping machine. In addition to these measurement systems, a system for monitoring the magnetic field during the CMS detector operation has been developed. Inside the solenoid in the horizontal plane, four 3D B-sensors were installed at the faces of the tracking detector at distances X = ±0.959 m and Z-coordinates of −2.899 and +2.895 m. Twelve 3D B-sensors were installed on the surfaces of the flux-return yoke nose disks. Seventy 3D B-sensors were installed in the air gaps of the CMS magnet yoke in 11 XY-planes of the azimuthal sector at 270°. A specially developed flux loop technique was used for the most complex measurements of the magnetic flux density inside the steel blocks of the CMS magnet yoke. The flux loops are installed in 22 sections of the flux-return yoke blocks in grooves of 30 mm wide and 12–13 mm deep and consist of 7–10 turns of 45 wire flat ribbon cable. The areas enclosed by these coils varied from 0.3 to 1.59 m2 in the blocks of the barrel wheels and from 0.5 to 1.12 m2 in the blocks of the yoke endcap disks. The development of these systems and the results of the magnetic flux density measurements across the CMS magnet are presented and discussed in this review article

FELIX: a PCIe based high-throughput approach for interfacing front-end and trigger electronics in the ATLAS Upgrade framework

The ATLAS Phase-I upgrade (2018) requires a Trigger and Data Acquisition (TDAQ) system able to trigger and record data from up to three times the nominal LHC instantaneous luminosity. The Front-End LInk eXchange (FELIX) system provides an infrastructure to achieve this in a scalable, detector agnostic and easily upgradeable way. It is a PC-based gateway, interfacing custom radiation tolerant optical links from front-end electronics, via FPGA PCIe Gen3 cards, to a commodity switched Ethernet or InfiniBand network. FELIX enables reducing custom electronics in favour of software running on commercial servers. The FELIX system, the design of the PCIe prototype card and the integration test results are presented in this paper

LHCb VELO Timepix3 Telescope

The LHCb VELO Timepix3 telescope is a silicon pixel tracking system constructed initially to evaluate the performance of LHCb VELO Upgrade prototypes. The telescope consists of eight hybrid pixel silicon sensor planes equipped with the Timepix3 ASIC . The planes provide excellent charge measurement, timestamping and spatial resolution and the system can function at high track rates. This paper describes the construction of the telescope and its data acquisition system and offline reconstruction software. A timing resolution of 350 ps was obtained for reconstructed tracks. A pointing resolution of better than 2\mum was determined for the 180 GeV/c mixed hadron beam at the CERN SPS . The telescope has been shown to operate at a rate of 5 million particles s−1⋅ cm−2 without a loss in efficiency.The LHCb VELO Timepix3 telescope is a silicon pixel tracking system constructed initially to evaluate the performance of LHCb VELO Upgrade prototypes. The telesope consists of eight hybrid pixel silicon sensor planes equipped with the Timepix3 ASIC. The planes provide excellent charge measurement, timestamping and spatial resolution and the system can function at high track rates. This paper describes the construction of the telescope and its data acquisition system and offline reconstruction software. A timing resolution of 350~ps was obtained for reconstructed tracks. A pointing resolution of better than 2~\mum was determined for the 180~GeV/c %\gevc mixed hadron beam at the CERN SPS. The telescope has been shown to operate at a rate of 5 million particles~\unit{s^{-1}\cdot cm^{-2}} without a loss in efficiency

The LHCb upgrade I

The LHCb upgrade represents a major change of the experiment. The detectors have been almost completely renewed to allow running at an instantaneous luminosity five times larger than that of the previous running periods. Readout of all detectors into an all-software trigger is central to the new design, facilitating the reconstruction of events at the maximum LHC interaction rate, and their selection in real time. The experiment's tracking system has been completely upgraded with a new pixel vertex detector, a silicon tracker upstream of the dipole magnet and three scintillating fibre tracking stations downstream of the magnet. The whole photon detection system of the RICH detectors has been renewed and the readout electronics of the calorimeter and muon systems have been fully overhauled. The first stage of the all-software trigger is implemented on a GPU farm. The output of the trigger provides a combination of totally reconstructed physics objects, such as tracks and vertices, ready for final analysis, and of entire events which need further offline reprocessing. This scheme required a complete revision of the computing model and rewriting of the experiment's software

The LHCb upgrade I

International audienceThe LHCb upgrade represents a major change of the experiment. The detectors have been almost completely renewed to allow running at an instantaneous luminosity five times larger than that of the previous running periods. Readout of all detectors into an all-software trigger is central to the new design, facilitating the reconstruction of events at the maximum LHC interaction rate, and their selection in real time. The experiment's tracking system has been completely upgraded with a new pixel vertex detector, a silicon tracker upstream of the dipole magnet and three scintillating fibre tracking stations downstream of the magnet. The whole photon detection system of the RICH detectors has been renewed and the readout electronics of the calorimeter and muon systems have been fully overhauled. The first stage of the all-software trigger is implemented on a GPU farm. The output of the trigger provides a combination of totally reconstructed physics objects, such as tracks and vertices, ready for final analysis, and of entire events which need further offline reprocessing. This scheme required a complete revision of the computing model and rewriting of the experiment's software

The LHCb upgrade I

International audienceThe LHCb upgrade represents a major change of the experiment. The detectors have been almost completely renewed to allow running at an instantaneous luminosity five times larger than that of the previous running periods. Readout of all detectors into an all-software trigger is central to the new design, facilitating the reconstruction of events at the maximum LHC interaction rate, and their selection in real time. The experiment's tracking system has been completely upgraded with a new pixel vertex detector, a silicon tracker upstream of the dipole magnet and three scintillating fibre tracking stations downstream of the magnet. The whole photon detection system of the RICH detectors has been renewed and the readout electronics of the calorimeter and muon systems have been fully overhauled. The first stage of the all-software trigger is implemented on a GPU farm. The output of the trigger provides a combination of totally reconstructed physics objects, such as tracks and vertices, ready for final analysis, and of entire events which need further offline reprocessing. This scheme required a complete revision of the computing model and rewriting of the experiment's software

The LHCb upgrade I

International audienceThe LHCb upgrade represents a major change of the experiment. The detectors have been almost completely renewed to allow running at an instantaneous luminosity five times larger than that of the previous running periods. Readout of all detectors into an all-software trigger is central to the new design, facilitating the reconstruction of events at the maximum LHC interaction rate, and their selection in real time. The experiment's tracking system has been completely upgraded with a new pixel vertex detector, a silicon tracker upstream of the dipole magnet and three scintillating fibre tracking stations downstream of the magnet. The whole photon detection system of the RICH detectors has been renewed and the readout electronics of the calorimeter and muon systems have been fully overhauled. The first stage of the all-software trigger is implemented on a GPU farm. The output of the trigger provides a combination of totally reconstructed physics objects, such as tracks and vertices, ready for final analysis, and of entire events which need further offline reprocessing. This scheme required a complete revision of the computing model and rewriting of the experiment's software