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Technical Groups 2023

Electronics Technology (ET)

TGL Ruud Kluit

Highlights 2023

  • ATLAS/FELIX DAQ system design is continuing in phase II. The Nikhef ET team contributes to the fast data transport, test features and emulators of the periphery, and firmware coordination of the development team. New hardware developed by the international team is successfully under test in the DAQ test system at Nikhef.
  • Fast timing project:
    • For the upgrade of the LHC/ALICE Inner Tracker system (ITS3),  prototype circuits have been tested and will be completed for integration in the final Pixel chip; this continues in 2024. This uses 65nm MAPS IC technology.
    • A start has been made in circuit design for a 28nm CMOS IC for LHC/LHCb VELO application. This will be a prototype chip, and will not have all features. But critical circuits like timing PLL/DLL’s and a DAC circuit have been prototyped and will be tested in 2024.
  • Senseis project: For seismic background noise measurements that are required for Gravitational Wave experiments a special MEMS sensor with control electronics was designed and used to test the latest MEMS sensor with ASIC. The ASIC demonstrates good functionality (after 4 critical iterations) and very promising results. Further tests in 2024, with the MEMS in vacuum, should give more detailed information for the next design iteration.
  • As a generic R&D activity, the time-synchronization system called “White-Rabbit” (WR) was developed further. This includes methods for absolute timing calibration and work is ongoing for IEEE standardization. A small WR node, “BabyWR” has been developed and tested, and an improved version for final use.
    This new WR development was started to implement this technology in Virgo (upgrade) and ETpathfinder. Boards are in production and 40 WR systems will be built in 2024.
  • Km3net: production of Digital optical modules (DOM’s), and the integration of Detection Units (DU’s) with 18 DOM’s has continued during 2024.
    Also the final steps in the production of the White-Rabbit switch that will be implemented in the phase II network of km3net are realized and pre-production has started. For phase II, the WR timing synchronization will then be further implemented in the Km3Net experiment.
    The full WR implementation in Km3net requires changes in the optical network, which has been designed and tested.
  • For Virgo a start is made for the design of new quadrant photodiode readout electronics.
  • ETpathfinder requires many infrastructure and cable support designs, as well as inside vacuum as outside, but then in the cleanroom environment. Many support activities have been carried out in that area by the ET. department.
  • New electronics were designed for Ptolomy, where extremely small RF signals need to be detected (~26 GHz). The first prototype board demonstrated very good performance and is a good starting point for continuation of the design of more challenging sensing (RF) electronics that is required for this experiment. It requires new special design techniques and very advanced RF test and measurement equipment for verification of the electronics.
  • LISA: in the ET EMC chamber, RF tests are being performed on newly designed housing of special electronics that must be installed in the future LISA experiment. This work is done in collaboration with SRON. The actual measurements were done by Nikhef engineers and continued over 2023.
  • For the readout of MediPix and TimePix chips, the SPidr system is further developed, and also produced in larger quantities to be used by other institutes.
    The multi-lane 10Gbps links are still in development to be used over several PCB’s, where signal integrity will be studied and optimized.

Mechanical Technology (MT)

TGL Freek Sanders

Highlights 2022

No information

Computing Technology (CT)

TGL Ronald Starink

Highlights 2023

  • Preparation of the replacement of the ELMB-2 modules in the ATLAS detector. These modules will be installed during LS3 and will be used with the HL-LHC.
  • Development of the required tools to commission and operate the LHCb SciFi detector and supporting the physicists with their use in commissioning the detector.
  • Implementation and configuration of a system to automate the installation of new computer systems.
  • Migration of all Windows-based systems to a new domain.
  • Various activities were performed in support of the renovation of the Nikhef buildings, including rollout of a new wireless network supporting 6 GHz Wi-Fi, completion of a new wired network infrastructure, and facilitating the moving of workspaces.
  • Replacement of the core router that connected Nikhef, AMOLF, ARCNL and CWI for 10 years to SURFnet. The new devices give each institute more control over their own network infrastructure.
  • Migration of the external backup service to SURF. This provides better support for backups of virtualized systems.
  • Continuous attention was given to improving the structural security and logging of ICT systems and to defend against incidental large-scale cyber attacks on our infrastructure.
  • Operating our own Security Operations Centre with fully automatic alerting in case of suspicious activities. This enables to scan and process log data from various sources in a privacy-aware way and only requires human intervention to follow up on an alert.
  • Revamp automation and orchestration systems to Rocky Linux 8.
  • Added 3 PB of storage to Stoomboot and Grid dCache.
  • Organized a workshop with NWO I DCC: Software Carpentry Course focusing on Basics with Unix, Git, and Python.
  • Edit and clean up user documentation on CT MediaWi; then migrate to Git/mkdocs for user documentation.
  • Structural contribution to the work of the Physics Data Processing group on large-scale computing projects.
  • Contributed to the organization of various meeting for gravitational waves and the Einstein Telescope, connecting instrumentalists, software developers and data analysts.
  • Wrote and submitted an NWO application for computing time for gravitational-wave data analysis for the Virgo collaboration, which was granted in December. This includes CPU and GPU time, and storage, which can be accessed through the OSG (Open Science Grid) and IGWN (International Gravitational-Wave Network) infrastructure by all members of the collaboration.
  • Organized two Made@Nikhef events where Nikhef’s KM3NeT and Gravitational Wave groups presented their research and infrastructure.
  • In collaboration with TU Delft, their Djehuty solution for an institutional data repository was developed further. The tool has been deployed at Nikhef and was introduced during the Computing Course and the Resource Data Management day. Contact was initiated with SURF to offer Djehuty as a service to other research institutes and universities.