Online Major Milestones

Purpose

Below we outline our strategy to develop an online system that meets the design goals listed in Online_Design_Goals and Elton's Hall D Design Goal document (GlueX-doc-866 in the DocDB). Here we only list major milestones along this development path. Detailed milestones and assignment of names can be found in Elke's Action Item Tracker and other documents. As decided in the 14-Dec-2008 OWG meeting, electronics milestones are also included here.

Basic Considerations

The complete DAQ (approximately 80 full crates) must be ready for commissioning the complete detector with cosmic or pulser triggers by 1Q FY 2014. First beam to the hall is expected in 4Q FY 2014, with low-rate production data taking expected to start in 4Q FY 2015. High-rate production data taking may start as early as 4Q FY 2016, assuming funds are available to upgrade the detector. Beneficial occupancy of Hall D is expected in summer 2010, counting house in fall 2011. Trigger, DAQ, monitoring, and control systems will be needed starting in early 2011 to check out detector subsystems as they are being installed and commissioned.

Note that the 12 GeV project specifies a beam rate of 10**7 photons/sec, but that we plan an eventual upgrade to 10**8. All components must be designed to be capable of, or upgradable or expandable to, 10**8 running.

Needed for Subsystem Review May 2008 and for CD-3 Review Summer 2008

N.B. All designs must satisfy the design goals described in Online_Design_Goals.

Overall trigger diagram - Feb 2008.
Interface document from Electronics group defining clock distribution system and energy-sum trigger - Feb 2008.
Interface document from DAQ group defining trigger distribution system and CODA 3 major components and functionality - Feb 2008.
Conceptual design of DAQ system specifying strategy to integrate devices and software described in the above two documents into a working system - Mar 2008.
Preliminary libraries for reading out existing custom boards (F1TDC, FADC) - Apr 2008.
Demonstrate crate-sum trigger components operating at 250 MHz - Apr 2008.
Demonstrate 200 kHz triggering and high-speed readout (> 100 MB/s) of multiple FADC/F1TDC modules in a single crate - Apr 2008.
Choice of controls framework - Apr 2008.
Interface document with Computer Center defining networking strategy, how to move data from counting house to storage silo, etc. - Apr 2008.

Notes:

An "interface document" defines major system components and their functionality, as well as fundamental agreements between two parties.
A "circuit specification" describes circuits at a level such that an electronics design firm could produce the devices. E.g. I/O signal levels and circuit functionality are described in detail, but IC choice is not specified.

Trigger/DAQ Milestones

2006

Production event transfer system - done Aug 2006
Production event I/O package - done Aug 2006

2007

DAQ test farm by 28-Sep-2007 (PED deliverable) - done Jan 2007
Prototype software component framework - done Jun 2007
Prototype run control system - done Jun 2007
Production inter-process communication package - done Nov 2007

2008

Subsystem review May 2008 and CD-3 review July 2008, see milestones above
Develop CODA-based electronics test stand by Jul 2008
Preliminary energy-sum and master trigger design by Sep 2008 (PED deliverable)
Prototype staged/parallel event builder by Sep 2008 (PED deliverable)
Revisit energy-sum trigger algorithm using latest hardware design - Nov 2008.
Verify event size and resulting backplane and network bandwidth requirements - Nov 2008.
Prototype single crate timing and trigger distribution by Nov 2008
Simulation of full system at low rate (run control, ET, multiple EB's, ER, etc) by Nov 2008
Prototype TI board by Nov 2008
Prototype energy-sum and master trigger boards by Nov 2008
Demonstrate 200 kHz staged parallel event building by Nov 2008
Demonstrate 200 kHz block event readout and transfer by Nov 2008
Prototypes of major CODA 3 components, including readout controller, staged/parallel event builder, event recorder, and run control system by Nov 2008.
Interface document with Accelerator division defining strategy for hall/accelerator inter-operation by Nov 2008.
Circuit specifications for clock distribution system - Nov 2008.
Circuit specifications energy sum trigger system - Nov 2008.
Circuit specifications for trigger distribution system - Nov 2008.

2009

Prototype L3 farm management software by Sep 2009
Master trigger design by Aug 2009 (PED deliverable)
Prototype multi-crate timing and trigger distribution by Oct 2009
Overall trigger design by Oct 2009
Prototype TS board by Oct 2009

2010

Demonstrate multi-crate high-speed readout
Simulation of full system at high rate
Production front-end driver software
Production timing distribution system
Production trigger distribution system
Production experiment control system
Production component framework
Production software components
Production TI board
Production TS board
Production energy-sum and master trigger boards

2011

Integration and test of all final Trigger/DAQ system components by Sep 2011
Install trigger and DAQ in Hall D as electronics and detector components begin to arrive

2012

Trigger/DAQ ready for testing hardware being installed in Hall D

Trigger/DAQ Detector Needs

DAQ systems of various sorts will be needed during detector development, construction, and checkout. Below, "parallel" means that parallel or staged event building is needed. "Small" means four crates or less, and "large" means more than four crates. In general, parallel readout is only needed at very high rates, where a single network connection cannot handle all the data.