Abstract
The new LHCb Vertex Locator (VELO) for LHCb, comprising a new pixel detector and readout electronics, will be installed in 2021 for data taking in Run 3 at the LHC. The electronics centers around the 'VeloPix' ASIC at the front-end operating in a trigger-less readout at 40MHz. A custom serializer, called gigabit wireline transmitter (GWT), and associated custom protocol have been designed for the VeloPix. The GWT data are sent from the serializers of the VeloPix at a line rate of 5.12 Gb/s, reaching a total data rate of 2-3 Tb/s for the full VELO detector. Data are sent over 300-m optic-fiber links to the control and readout electronics cards for deserialization and processing in Intel Arria 10 FPGAs. Because of the VeloPix trigger-less design, latency variances up to 12 $\mu \text{s}$ can occur between adjacent datagrams. It is therefore essential to buffer and synchronize the data in firmware prior to onward propagation or suffer a huge CPU-processing penalty. This article will describe the architecture of the readout firmware in detail with focus given to the resynchronization mechanism and techniques for cauterization. Issues found during readout commissioning, and scaling resource utilization, along with the their solutions, will be illustrated. The latest results of the firmware data-processing chain can be presented as well as the verification procedures employed in simulation. Challenges for the next generation of the detector will also be presented with ideas for a readout processing solution.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2472-2479 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science |
| Volume | 68 |
| Issue number | 10 |
| Early online date | 31 May 2021 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Oct 2021 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
This work was supported in part by CERN and the National Agencies: CAPES, CNPq, FAPERJ, and FINEP (Brazil); in part by INFN (Italy); in part by NWO (Netherlands); in part by MEiN and NCN (Poland) under Grant UMO-2018/31/B/ST2/03998; in part by MSHE (Russia); in part by MICINN (Spain); and in part by STFC (U.K.).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro | |
| Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek | |
| Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación | |
| MSHE | |
| Instituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare | |
| Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos | |
| Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico | |
| Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior | |
| MEiN | |
| CERN | |
| Narodowe Centrum Nauki | UMO-2018/31/B/ST2/03998 |
| Science and Technology Facilities Council | ST/L003430/1 |
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