Agenda

Time/Location

Note slight change in time

2:00 PM Wed 15-Apr-2009 CC F326

One-day Hall D trigger workshop tentatively scheduled for Wed 8-Jul-2009 at CNU.

1:30 pm Wed 10-Jun-2009

Attendees: Elliott W, Beni Z, Simon T, Dave A, Mark I, Chris C, Dave D, Vardan G, Alex S, Eugene C.

FADC125

From Fernando:

IEEE Real Time 2009 in Beijing

Dave Abbott and Chris Cuevas attended the conference a week or so ago. See Chris' slides above. Some hightlights:

Very few Americans attended.
Chris attended an ATCA workshop before the conference, covered ATCA (up to 8U) and microTCA.
Emphasis on digital, little on analog processing.
-48 V only, all other voltages must be created on-board.
Planned for ITER, PANDA at FAIR, other places.
JLab only place reporting on VXS, many people interested to hear about this.
Chris and Dave presented papers on the Hall D trigger system and digitizer boards.
CMS using Java-based control system, extensive use of XML and DIM (for interprocess communication).
Phenix uses fast data compression in DAQ system, just before writing to disk.
Heard reports on SLHC, upgrade to LHC.
LHC not driving global networking despite massive data transfer requirements.

EPICS Collaboration Meeting

Elliott reported on Vancouver meeting, see agenda and talks on link above.

Half-day tutorial session interesting, but basic. Full five-day EPICS training courses given on occasion, none recently or planned for the near future.
EPICS/Labview connection being rewritten in native Labview, client and server, due this Fall (from ORNL).
Just received working Linux-only EPICS/Labview client from ORNL, will test soon.
EPICS/Labview used all over the place.
JavaIOC coming along, not ready for production, may be in good enough shape for us to test.
Channel Access protocol being modified to implement new user-defined compound/structured fields in JavaIOC.
Writing new record types is now strongly discouraged. Recommended strategy is to write drivers using the new ASYN framework (oh well, all that time I spent wasn't a complete waste...I learned a lot about EPICS internals!).
CSS and Synoptic Display coming along much more slowly that I'd expected...Labview and EDM are still backups, but the pace of development seems to be increasing.

Coil Tests

Eugene is looking for money.
Tim has allocated design time to get the Hall A platform modified for the test.
Mark Wissman should be available to do the PLC programming.
Space in Test Lab now available (Simon moved the FDC stuff back to the EEL)
Still need to make room in F117 and move three racks down from computer center.
Mark Stevens time needed by lots of people, not sure if he has enough time to work on everything. If hired soon the new Hall D work coordinator could make up the difference...Eugene says the person may be hired within the next few weeks, and the coil test would be his first priority.
Need to get PR's in for controls equipment so they're ready to go when the money appears.
Cryo distribution vessel mostly designed and will go into a PR for many similar vessels.

Electronics

Board testing and design coming along mostly according to schedule.
Trigger test has run up to 310 MHz, will push to the limit.
Two-crate tests should be done within a month, some FADC's will become available.
Will start serious SSP, CTP and trigger distribution designs.
Chris says the "hammer is coming down from the 12GeV Project office!"

Target

We met with Chris Keith (Target group) a few weeks ago.

Plan to use a stand-alone refrigerator to make LH2, much simpler and more robust than using He from main refrigerator.
Chris understands that we plan to use a PLC-based control system and has no objections. They have no experience with this yet, but expect others will request the same in the future.
No one is coordinating the Hall D target effort yet.