Front-End Electronics Configuration Files

The control signals for the calorimeter frontend electronics ('NEVIS Electronics') are generated by a number of NIM modules; these modules are configured through serial links coming from 4 Serial Cards in the F/RCAL Subsystem VME-crate; settings of the F/R/BCAL Analog Cards are also downloaded via these cards.

In ZEUS the Serial Card channels are connected as follows:

Serial Card 1 		 		


chan 0 		 $\Rightarrow$		 -


chan 1 		 $\Rightarrow$		 Control Fanout FCAL


chan 2 		 $\Rightarrow$		 Analog Cards FCAL


chan 3 		 $\Rightarrow$		 Analog Cards FCAL


chan 4 		 $\Rightarrow$		 Table Card 


chan 5 		 $\Rightarrow$		 Pipeline Controller 


chan 6 		 $\Rightarrow$		 Format Card 


chan 7 		 $\Rightarrow$		 Pulser Card 



Serial Card 2 		 		


chan 0 		 $\Rightarrow$		 -


chan 1 		 $\Rightarrow$		 Control Fanout RCAL


chan 2 		 $\Rightarrow$		 Analog Cards RCAL


chan 3 		 $\Rightarrow$		 Analog Cards RCAL


chan 4 		 $\Rightarrow$		 -


chan 5 		 $\Rightarrow$		 -


chan 6 		 $\Rightarrow$		 -


chan 7 		 $\Rightarrow$		 -



Serial Card 3 				 


chan 0 		 $\Rightarrow$		 -


chan 1 		 $\Rightarrow$		 Control Fanout BCAL


chan 2 		 $\Rightarrow$		 Analog Cards BCAL


chan 3 		 $\Rightarrow$		 Analog Cards BCAL


chan 4 		 $\Rightarrow$		 -


chan 5 		 $\Rightarrow$		 -


chan 6 		 $\Rightarrow$		 -


chan 7 		 $\Rightarrow$		 -



Serial Card 4 (duty-cycle settings)				 


chan 0 		 $\Rightarrow$		 Clock fanout modules 


chan 1 		 $\Rightarrow$		 -


chan 2 		 $\Rightarrow$		 -


chan 3 		 $\Rightarrow$		 -


chan 4 		 $\Rightarrow$		 Start/Stop Calorimeter clock (??)


chan 5 		 $\Rightarrow$		 -


chan 6 		 $\Rightarrow$		 -


chan 7 		 $\Rightarrow$		 -

The Serial Cards are controlled by the HOST-transputer which downloads the configuration data to the cards. Downloading of configuration data can be disabled (at CALDAQ startup) by setting an environmental variable USESERIALCARDS on the host computer to FALSE.

The configuration files are read via a symbolic link to directory:

/zeus/transputer/online/vxx.y/bin/host/cnf

The actual configuration files can be found in directory $\:\tilde{}$calec_rc/cnf, in the form of ASCII-files (*.acf files) or binary files (*.cnf files).

Once at every startup of the CALDAQ system the following configuration files get downloaded:

• table.cnf (to Serial Card 1)
• pulser.cnf (to Serial Card 1)
• format.cnf (to Serial Card 1)
• duty.cnf (to Serial Card 4)

At every start of a run, configuration data is downloaded which is read from a file whose name is taken from the 19th line of the DAQ configuration file (the line with the comment: CNF file). The same configuration data is downloaded to each of the Serial Cards 1, 2 and 3, corresponding to FCAL, RCAL and BCAL respectively.

(NOTE: because this data can also contain settings for the NIM modules connected to Serial Card 1 channels 4 to 7, nothing can be connected to these same channels on Serial Cards 2 and 3, although they are available...).

(NOTE: in case of run types DUTY.CYCLE.MONITORING and DUTY.CYCLE configuration data gets only downloaded to Serial Card 4; moreover preceeding the configuration data from the above-mentioned file, data from file duty_cycle_mon_ch.acf or duty_cycle_ch.acf respectively is downloaded).

At every abort-run or end-of-run configuration data from file endrun.cnf is downloaded (to Serial card 1 only).

A configuration data ASCII-file consists of one or more configurations, each configuration consisting of one comment line and 8 lines of data, one line per Serial Card channel; which Serial Card the data is downloaded to is decided by the HOST-transputer and depends on the specific configuration file being read.

The syntax of a data-line is:

repeat-count #databytes $<$databyte$>$ $<$databyte$>$ .....

The repeat-count signifies how many times the list of databytes have to be downloaded to the particular Serial Card channel.

Example of a configuration:

-- charge 1
  0    0
  1    1  255
 20    3   63   63  166
 20    3   63   63  166
  1    2   50   64
  1    4   90    0    0  192
  0    0
  0    0

In this example no data is downloaded to Serial Card channels 0, 6 and 7, one word (255) is downloaded to channel 1, three bytes are downloaded 20 times to channels 2 and 3.

More detailed information on the meaning of the bytes and bits downloaded to the different cards of the control electronics can be found in [3].