2.3 Design Requirements
25
conventional zero suppression might not be sufficient. As there is little probability
of pileup in the MCH detector, it is enough to know the length of the pulse and the
total charge to be able to reconstruct the pulse. Sending only the sum and length
of the sample values representing the pulse, together with the time of arrival will
significantly reduce the bandwidth needed. Further analysis is done at the end of this
chapter.
2.3.6.3 Physical Size
The existing detector implementation will not be modified and such, the physical
layout of the front-end boards, the location, and the connections to the chambers
will be kept unchanged. Two versions of the front-end boards exist for the previous
implementation; MANU 12 and MANU 345. They have the same functionality, but
differ in the form-factor due to differences in the geometrical constraints for the two
most forward and three most backwards chambers (1,2 and 3,4,5 respectively). The
MANU 12 boards have a size of 23 mm × 63 mm and the MANU 345 have a size of
32 mm × 50 mm, which sets a limit for the size of the chip to about 15 mm × 15 mm.
This leaves some room for routing of traces on the short sides for the MANU 12 boards
and leaves enough space for placing the voltage regulators.
For the digital design, the size constraint mainly limits the amount of memory
available for buffering of events and the number of power, input and output pins that
can be positioned around the edges of the silicon die.
2.3.7 Other Detectors
As the project evolved, other detectors have shown an interest in using the device for
their detector. The primary requirements of the device is set by the requirements of
the TPC and MCH, though the development has tried to encompass the needs of the
other groups as far as feasible without compromising the original requirements.
2.3.7.1 RHIC STAR
The Solenoid Tracker at RHIC (STAR) detector is one of four experiments at the
Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC), located at Brookhaven National Laboratory
in Brookhaven, USA. The primary physics goal for STAR is to study the formation
and characteristics of QGP, similar to the ALICE detector at the LHC. The STAR
detector uses a TPC as the main tracking detector. [27] The readout system of the
TPC is based on MWPCs with readout pads. The readout pads are divided into 12
circular sectors on each side, where each sector is divided into an inner and outer
sector. The pads in the inner sector do not provide uniform coverage at all radii like
the outer sectors, as there is a spacing of about 5 times the pad height between rows,
25
conventional zero suppression might not be sufficient. As there is little probability
of pileup in the MCH detector, it is enough to know the length of the pulse and the
total charge to be able to reconstruct the pulse. Sending only the sum and length
of the sample values representing the pulse, together with the time of arrival will
significantly reduce the bandwidth needed. Further analysis is done at the end of this
chapter.
2.3.6.3 Physical Size
The existing detector implementation will not be modified and such, the physical
layout of the front-end boards, the location, and the connections to the chambers
will be kept unchanged. Two versions of the front-end boards exist for the previous
implementation; MANU 12 and MANU 345. They have the same functionality, but
differ in the form-factor due to differences in the geometrical constraints for the two
most forward and three most backwards chambers (1,2 and 3,4,5 respectively). The
MANU 12 boards have a size of 23 mm × 63 mm and the MANU 345 have a size of
32 mm × 50 mm, which sets a limit for the size of the chip to about 15 mm × 15 mm.
This leaves some room for routing of traces on the short sides for the MANU 12 boards
and leaves enough space for placing the voltage regulators.
For the digital design, the size constraint mainly limits the amount of memory
available for buffering of events and the number of power, input and output pins that
can be positioned around the edges of the silicon die.
2.3.7 Other Detectors
As the project evolved, other detectors have shown an interest in using the device for
their detector. The primary requirements of the device is set by the requirements of
the TPC and MCH, though the development has tried to encompass the needs of the
other groups as far as feasible without compromising the original requirements.
2.3.7.1 RHIC STAR
The Solenoid Tracker at RHIC (STAR) detector is one of four experiments at the
Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC), located at Brookhaven National Laboratory
in Brookhaven, USA. The primary physics goal for STAR is to study the formation
and characteristics of QGP, similar to the ALICE detector at the LHC. The STAR
detector uses a TPC as the main tracking detector. [27] The readout system of the
TPC is based on MWPCs with readout pads. The readout pads are divided into 12
circular sectors on each side, where each sector is divided into an inner and outer
sector. The pads in the inner sector do not provide uniform coverage at all radii like
the outer sectors, as there is a spacing of about 5 times the pad height between rows,