1. Fast ADC Application

The Fast ADC application was developed to capture raw data of all ten ADCs channels and to process the information of pulse shaped signals. Each ADC signal is individually process according to the parameters configured by the user and the resulting data available via registers. In addition, 5 virtual channels are available which can be configure to be the sum or subtraction of two (real) ADC channels.

The application was developed under the Simulink environment, using the XFEL Simulink Library. As such, the application can be fully simulated in the Matlab environment using experimental data.

Tests of the system under experimental conditions have indicated that the device can reliably acquire 108000 raw samples, which corresponds to a time window of 1ms, from all 10 channels simultaneously.

In this documentation an overview of the hardware device (taken by the manual by EEE) is presented, as well as its setup in the configuration editor of the Karabo device. For more detail information on the board, firmware and performance results, please visit Fast Electronics Digitizer Overview page.

This chapter will cover the mininum requirements for the device to be operational, which is a Clock and Trigger signal.

_images/clock_trigger.png

FastADC Clock and Trigger Karabo parameters

1.1. Clock Sources

The FastADC can accept clock signals from the following sources:

  • TclkA (MicroTCA backplane)
  • TclkB (MicroTCA backplane)
  • Internal Clock (125 MHz)
  • Front SMA Connector
  • Front Hardlink Connector
  • RJ45 SIS8900 RTM Connector

In XFEL, 99% of the FastADC setups use the TclkA or TclkB source, since these lines have a clock signal provided by the Timing Board, which is phase sync with the laser operation at XFEL.

1.2. Trigger Sources

A trigger signal is required to start the operation of the Fast ADC Application. The Fast ADC firmware supports thirteen trigger sources, which can be combine to a single signal: eight from the MLVDS lines in the MicroTCA backplane, four from the Harlink connector, four from SIS8900 RTM RJ45 connector as well as an internal one.

Again, 99% of the XFEL FastADC setups use a trigger source from the MicroTCA Backplane, which is provided by the Timing system.