Readout control unit of the front end electronics for the ALICE time projection chamber

• DOI: 10.5170/cern-2002-003.160
• Publication Date: 2002-01-01
• Authors: R. Esteve; D. Röhrich; A Jiménez de Parga; Bernhard Skaali; H. Helstrup; J. Lien; A. Vestbø; R. Campagnolo; D. Wormald; K. Ullaland; L. Musa; Bernardo Mota
• Keywords: Instrument control; Time projection chamber; Nuclear electronics

The readout electronics for the ALICE TPC detector consists of 4356 front-end cards (FECs) that contain complete chain to signals coming from 570132 pads. are grouped in 216 partitions, each controlled by a Readout Control Unit (RCU) interfaces FECs DAQ, Trigger, and Detector System. RCU broadcast trigger information FECs, collects related data assembles sub-event, compresses sends compressed packed sub-event DAQ via Data Link (DDL). is designed cope with maximum throughput 200 Mbyte/s. In this paper we present an overview requirements, architecture some main design features RCU, as well description two prototypes.