Software-Driven Network Architecture for Synchronous Data Acquisition

Experiments at facilities such as the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) involve thousands of detector elements that produce raw experimental data at rates in excess of a GB/sec using new Flash ADC (FADC) based detectors. The data from each detector element is labeled with a precisely synchronized time, and transmitted to buffers. The data is analyzed to determine whether something interesting has happened, which constitutes a trigger. If justified by the trigger, the data from these elements are assembled into a time-correlated event for later analysis, a process called Event Building. Event rates of 1 to 10 kevents/sec are anticipated in certain FRIB experiments. Crossfield Technology is developing a software-driven system architecture for data acquisition system and Event Building. The architecture features an Instrumentation Gateway (IG) that supports time-synchronous data acquisition, real-time digital signal processing, and data streaming across a low-latency, high-performance network to a High Performance Computer (HPC) system. The programmable Instrumentation Gateway can implement a wide variety of embedded instruments, including signal processing of FADC data in real-time. The proposed Instrumentation Gateway is based on a highly integrated Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) System on Chip (SoC) with built-in ARM processor(s). Crossfield Technology proposes an Instrumentation Gateway that provides high-speed, low-latency data transfer from detectors to a computer or data storage system, and is scalable from one to thousands of channels. The innovative architecture uses commodity network components, and emerging standards for network time synchronization. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits: Commercial and government research laboratories will benefit from a standards-based Instrumentation Gateway compatible with VPX detector/data acquisition systems and enabling them to work with modern network architectures.