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Title: A proposed scalable parallel open architecture data acquisition system for low to high rate experiments, test beams and all SSC detectors

Conference · · IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (USA)
OSTI ID:6607753
; ; ;  [1]; ;  [2]
  1. Fermi National Accelerator Lab., Batavia, IL (USA)
  2. Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (USA)

A new era of high-energy physics research is beginning requiring accelerators with much higher luminosities and interaction rates in order to discover new elementary particles. As a consequence, both orders of magnitude higher data rates from the detector and online processing power, well beyond the capabilities of current high energy physics data acquisition systems, are required. This paper describes a proposed new data acquisition system architecture which draws heavily from the communications industry, is totally parallel (i.e., without any bottlenecks), is capable of data rates of hundreds of Gigabytes per second from the detector and into an array of online processors (i.e., processor farm), and uses an open systems architecture to guarantee compatibility with future commercially available online processor farms. The main features of the proposed Scalable Parallel Open Architecture data acquisition system are standard interface ICs to detector subsystems wherever possible, fiber optic digital data transmission from the near-detector electronics, a self-routing parallel event builder, and the use of industry-supported and high-level language programmable processors in the proposed BCD system for {und both} triggers and online filters. A brief status report of an ongoing project at Fermilab to build a prototype of the proposed data acquisition system architecture is given in the paper. The major component of the system, a self-routing parallel event builder, is described in detail.

OSTI ID:
6607753
Report Number(s):
CONF-900143-; CODEN: IETNA; TRN: 90-031547
Journal Information:
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (USA), Vol. 37:3; Conference: Institute for Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) nuclear science symposium, San Francisco, CA (USA), 15-19 Jan 1990; ISSN 0018-9499
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English