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MiniDAQ Electronics
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  Last modified: 12:45 Friday 01-OCT-1999


  • MiniDAQ VME crate: MiniDAQ's VME crate holds five processors, a 32-MB memory card, two interrupt modules (one is used only as an output register), a trigger card (getting only power from the crate), etc. The VME backplane has been hardwired such that module locations cannot necessarily be changed. For example: the bus grant for the i960's is daisy-chained between the i960's, so that their positions must be contiguous, with the leftmost unit in a particular slot.

  • MiniDAQ processors: there are two MVME167 and three Cyclone i960 processors. Booting and IP numbers are discussed elsewhere.

  • Rosie receiver cards: Three identical Cyclone i960 processors (scoter, wigeon and gadwall) live in the MiniDAQ crate; each has two Rosie boards protruding several inches from its front panel. The Rosie's are numbered 1-6 globally, with the numbers usually, but not necessarily, being the same as the readout board numbers. The Cyclone processor software (which knows about only its own Rosie's) refers to its upper and lower Rosie as ``Rosie 0'' and ``Rosie 1,'' respectively.

  • Trigger crate: most of the trigger logic resides in a standard NIM bin near the MiniDAQ VME crate.

  • Trigger card: the trigger card sends a 4-bit TTL pattern, set through TTL Lemo inputs (by a VME interrupt module being used as an output register) to the readout boards, when strobed by a TTL Lemo trigger signal. Otherwise, it sends a 0000 (do nothing) pattern. The two ribbon-cable outputs are interchangeable. Twisted-pair trigger cables trigger the RDO's. The cables must be installed with the small, molded "Pin 1" triangles aligned with the similar triangles on the sockets at both ends. (The triangle on each trigger card connector faces toward the crate, obscuring visibility; the triangle on the cable connector should also face toward the crate.

    A single crystal on this card produces all clocks for the readout boards; 9.4345 MHz is produced by dividing a standard 18.869 MHz crystal.

    In MiniDAQ, the lasers and the ADC sampling clock are both free running. (For that matter, the cosmics are free running, too.) The laser sends a trigger signal, which sends the 0x04 command to the readout boards. It's a very simple circuit. To a good approximation, the trigger time is probably more-or-less smeared uniformly over one clock period by this. It is not measured.

    The laser trigger itself does not contribute significantly to the smearing. It is created from a fast photodiode with ~2 ns rise time. This signal comes to the laser trigger board, and a TTL signal is sent to MiniDAQ with a total delay ~150-200 ns (including cables).

    For RHIC running---The ADC sampling clock will be phase-locked to the RHIC cycle, taking advantage of the fact that the accelerator pulses are not free running. Spencer Klein notes that, for RHIC data taken in the final configuration, laser events will also be phase-locked to the RHIC strobe through a feedback loop that adjusts when the Q-switch fires. Mikhail Aluyshin (MEPhI) is building this circuitry. Until it is installed, the offset will may vary from event to event.

  • Trigger synchronization module: New triggers are disallowed in MiniDAQ until the previous one has been processed, so the busy signals from all enabled Rosie's must be OR'ed. Additionally, there is a small chance that a readout board can miss a trigger, or be triggered by noise. The 6 toggle switches have three positions:

    The switch positions must exactly correspond to enabled/disabled states of the Rosies set in MiniDAQ at configuration time.

  • Trigger clock (oscillator): The clock should be set at a few hertz - fast enough for a small dead time between pedestal events, slow enough that the 256-trigger timeout of the synchronization module doesn't come too fast.