Speaker
Dr
Vasily Shebalin
(University of Hawaii at Mano)
Description
Large Area Picosecond Photodetectors (LAPPD) are a new generation of
microchannel plate photomultipliers being manufactured by Incom.
These devices feature large sensitive area of 350 cm^2, high quantum efficiency (\sim 20\%), and tens of picosecond single photon
timing resolution. LAPPDs use an anode structure with 28 striplines, allowing for
spatial resolution of 1-3 mm while minimizing the number of readout
channels. In this report, we present our design of integrated readout electronics for the LAPPD. These electronics read out all 2x28 channels
of a stripline-anode LAPPD. Waveform sampling at up to~5GSPS is performed by 8 DRS4
switched-capacitor array ASICs. All DRS4 channels are digitized in parallel with two 32-channel ADCs. An on-board FPGA coordinates digitization and readout of waveforms,
and could further be expanded to include some waveform processing.
Data packages built in the FPGA are sent to a DAQ system via optical
fiber, with a baseline Gigabit Ethernet interface implemented entirely
on the FPGA. The electronics is designed to accommodate different triggering options: self-triggering using DRS4 transparent mode and external triggering, making event
control very flexible. Further flexibility is enhanced with embedded software for an on-FPGA
soft-core processor, as well as DAQ readout and control software.
The device is plug and play with any existing IP network.
An open-source ecosystem is being developed to provide full control
of the device operation and an easy way to integrate it to any
environment. In the report we describe the status of the electronics development, its firmware and readout software. Also the results of the first tests of the electronics with the LAPPD devices will be presented.
Primary authors
Mr
Jocher Glenn
(Ultralytics LLC)
Dr
Kevin Croker
(University of Hawaii at Manoa)
Prof.
Kurtis Nishimura
(University of Hwaii at Maoa)
Dr
Vasily Shebalin
(University of Hawaii at Mano)
