Title: 19Nov1998 Page 1
1ATLAS TRIGGER/DAQROBs
Rationale
Context
Current work
Issues
Main institutes
CERN, MANNHEIM, NIKHEF,RHUL, SACLAY, UCL
2Rationale
- The ReadOut Buffer (ROB) is a key component in
the current ATLAS trigger/DAQ strategy - RoI concept ? only a subset of main readout data
needs to go to Level-2 processors - Full data sits in ROBs until event is accepted or
rejected at Level-2 - The ROB is the first common element in the
readout chain - Demanding performance
3ROB rates
- Large asymmetry between input output
event-fragment rates and bandwidths - Input from ROLs _at_ 100MB/s (100kHz of 1kB
fragments) - Output to Level-2 processors (RoI data) _at_ 10MB/s
- Output to Event Builder _at_ 1MB/s
- (Assumed average event latency in the ROB 1ms)
4ROB context
Run Control
Monitoring Status system
monitoring /status requests
RC requests
LVL1 accepted event data
monitoring data, errors, status
RC responses
RODs
RoI data
ROB busy (XOFF)
ROB
RoI requests
LVL2 system
LVL2 decisions
EB-requested event data
EB release requests
Level-1 control
EB data requests
Event Builder
5Requirements
- URD for ROB ( ROB-in), June, 1996
- (http//www.cern.ch/HIS/rob/)
- Sub-detector data input
- Level-2 trigger
- Level-3 (obsolete term)
- Run control
- TTC
- Error handling
- Global system
- Physical constraints
- Revision planned for Dec 1999
- Unofficial TDAQ document - future requirements
documentation to be discussed
6Current work
- ROB studies in the Level-2 Pilot Project
- (http//www.nikhef.nl/pub/experiments/atlas/daq/RO
B.html) - prototypes for vertical slice tests
- study of options for ROB Complex
- DAQ Prototype -1
- (http//atddoc.cern.ch/Atlas/)
- demonstrate COTS approach (where appropriate)
- implement required functionality
7ROB prototyping model
ROB-controller
ROB-out(s)
Level-1 accepted data
Network to Level-2
EBIF
Event Builder
ROB-in(s)
8ROB-in design approach
Buffer manager
Level-1 accepted detector data
Messages
Input fifo
Interface to other ROB components
Buffer memory logic
Local comms
100 MB/s
selected data
10 MB/s
9ROB-in development
- Mainline in-house variants (i960 PCI)
- RHUL/UCL ROB-in RD (DAQ-1 Level-2)
- Saclay ROBIN (Level-2)
- SHARC-based alternative (DSP links)
- NIKHEF CRUSH (Level-2)
- Commercial FPGA board (FPGA PCI)
- Silicon Software/Mannheim microEnable (Level-2)
- Commercial PMC board (PowerPC PCI)
- CES MFCC (DAQ-1)
10ROB-in RD (RHUL/UCL)
11ROBIN (Saclay)
12CRUSH (NIKHEF)
13microEnable(SiliconSoftware/Mannheim)
14MFCC (CES)
PCI bus
PPC bus _at_ 66 MHz
Electrical Adaptor
Front-End FPGA
PCI bridge (CES FPGA)
64
Electrical Adaptation
64
Optional 512 Kbytes SSRAM buffer
System SDRAM 4 or 16 Mbytes
PowerPC 603ev or Arthur
PN4
Flash EPROM 2 or 4 Mbytes
CPLD SDRAM CTL glue logic
15DAQ high-level design
16DAQ front-end crate
17Some issues
- TTC interaction does ROB need direct TTC
connection? E.g. for bcid checking - XOFF, LVL1 interaction How should full ROB
buffers be handled? Back-pressure or direct BUSY
to LVL1? - XOFF timing How rapidly does a ROD need to
respond to XOFF? - timeouts should a ROB implement any special
timeouts for e.g. front-end data not arriving or
events not being released?
18Some more issues
- byte order should a standard byte order be
defined for ROD-ROB data? - event types / monitoring what event types need
to be recognised by a ROB? What kind of
monitoring will be needed at the ROB level? - ROB grouping / pre-processing is there any
advantage to be gained from grouping ROBs, or
from pre-processing data in the ROBs? - in-house v. COTS v. semi-COTS what is the true
cost of ownership for different ROB options?
19Summary
- Healthy ROB-in development activity
- Programme of studies underway to explore the
possibilities for a ROB Complex - Prototyping well underway implementing ROB
functionality with COTS (or semi-COTS) items - Issues being highlighted for common discussion
- Conclusions from current work to be documented
together for Technical Proposal at the end of 1999