A LOW-POWER, HIGH-SPEED, MULTIPLE-CHANNEL TRANSIENT RECORDER (Q-DOT RESEARCH PROPOSAL 1288)

Q-DOT PROPOSES TO DEVELOP A LOW-COST, HIGH-PERFORMANCE TRANSIENT RECORDER FOR USE IN HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS EXPERIMENTS. HERETOFORE, THE RECORDING OF SOMPLETE, AMPLITUDE VS. TIME HISTORIES FROM DETECTORS HAS BEEN DESIRABLE BUT PROHIBITIVELY EXPENSIVE AND LIMITED IN VERSATILITY. SINGLE-CHANNEL PER CHIP, 1 GS/S TRANSIENT RECORDERS USING CHARGE-COUPLED DEVICES (CCDS) HAVE DEMONSTRATED THE CAPABILITY OF RECORDING 1 GHZ BANDWIDTH DATA AT HIGHER RATES. SINCE THE COST OF SINGLE-CHANNEL RECORDERS IS DOMINATED BY CONTROL AND SUPPORT CIRCUITRY, A TWO-PRONG STRATEGY IS PROPOSED TO LOWER COST: 1) BUILD MULTIPLE RECORDING CHANNELS ON EACH CHIP; AND 2) MINIMIZE CONTROL AND SUPPORT FUNCTIONS. FOUR, 4 GS/S TRANSIENT RECORDERS, EACH WITH 4 US RECORDS, ARE PROPOSED PER CHIP. (THE SAME CHIP WILL OPERATE AS 16, 1 GS/S RECORDERS, ALSO WITH 4 US RECORDS.) CONTROL AND SYNCHRONIZATION FUNCTIONS AVAILABLE THROUGH THE VXI BUS (REF. 1) WILL BE EXPLOITED TO MINIMIZE SUPPORT. EACH D-SIZE MODULE WILL PROVIDE 16, 4 GS/S CHANNELS AT A NOMINAL COST PER MODULE OF $8,000 TO $16,000, OR $500 TO $1,000 PER CHANNEL. COST MAY BE FURTHER REDUCED IF COMMON CONTROL FUNCTIONS CAN BE MAXIMIZED. PHASE I WILL RESULT IN A DETAILED RECORDER DESIGN AND THE DEMONSTRATION OF 1 GHZ BANDWIDTH HARDWARE. THE MULTICHANNEL RECORDER WILL BE DEVELOPED IN PHASE II.