The Front-End Concentrator card for the RD51 Scalable Readout System

Conventional readout systems exist in many variants since the usual approach is to build readout electronics for one given type of detector. The Scalable Readout System (SRS) developed within the RD51 collaboration relaxes this situation considerably by providing a choice of frontends which are connected over a customizable interface to a common SRS DAQ architecture. This allows sharing development and production costs among a large base of users as well as support from a wide base of developers. The Front-end Concentrator card (FEC), a RD51 common project between CERN and the NEXT Collaboration, is a reconfigurable interface between the SRS online system and a wide range of frontends. This is accomplished by using application-specific adapter cards between the FEC and the frontends. The ensemble (FEC and adapter card are edge mounted) forms a 6U x 220mm Eurocard combo that fits on a 19 '' subchassis. Adapter cards exist already for the first applications and more are in development.We acknowledge the support of the NEXT and RD51 Collaborations and the CONSOLIDER-INGENIO2010 grant CSD2008-0037 (Canfranc Underground Physics). We also acknowledge the invaluable support from the DATE team at CERN PH-AID. We thank Michal Kubicek, from Brno University of Technology, for his help with the FPGA data recovery algorithms.Toledo Alarcón, JF.; Müller, HW.; Esteve Bosch, R.; Monzó Ferrer, JM.; Tarazona Martínez, A.; Martoiu, S. (2011). The Front-End Concentrator card for the RD51 Scalable Readout System. Journal of Instrumentation. 6(11):1-8. doi:10.1088/1748-0221/6/11/C11028S1861