Data Aquisition System

The readout is based on the system used by the ALICE experiment. Due to the different requirements some changes have been developed for the DAQ system. An schematic overview of the system is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Overview of the prototype DAQ TPC readout.

The FECs are placed on a backplane, which is controlled by a Readout Control Unit (RCU) . The data is sent through a Detector Data optical Link (DDL) to a Detector Read Out Receiver Card (DRORC). This is a PCI card situated in a PC. The DBOX (Distribution BOX) and TLU (Trigger Logic Unit) are replacements for the corresponding ALICE DCS and TTC systems. The RCU has been modified to receive the trigger and clock signals from cables.
The software for the configuration of the hardware, the readout and for the local data storage has been developed. Also, a simple monitoring is possible, but not yet in real-time. The current status and future plans of the monitoring system are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: The current and planned monitoring system. Dashed lines indicate future development.