The ENABLE Machine - A Systolic Second Level Trigger Processor for Track Finding

Abstract

The Enable Machine is a systolic processor for 2nd level triggering for the TRD. It is under development within the EAST/RD-11 collaboration at CERN. The task of the processor is to identify electron tracks and to reject pion tracks in less than 10 s. Track are identified by direct template matching in a region-of-interest (RoI) of the TRD. This is done by histogramming the coincidences of the mask templates and the RoI data for each track. Tracks of the same slope are handled in parallel, tracks of different slope in a pipeline. e/p discrimination is done according to the EAST benchmark algorithm. At an operational speed of 40 MHz the trigger decision time will be 6.5 s and the latency 7.0 s. The Enable Machine will be set up with programmable gate arrays so that it can be adapted easily to different applications. It is scalable in the RoI size as well as in the number of tracks processed concurrently. A prototype is scheduled for spring 1993. 1. Introduction Systolic proce..