Evaluation of gigabit links for use in HEP trigger processing

The next generation of colliders will take experimental particle physics into energy regimes where the potential for fundamental new discoveries is overshadowed by the immense technological challenges that have to be met in building the necessary detectors. One major technological challenge is to build detectors with fine granularity that can withstand the very high levels of radiation around the interaction region. The final challenge is to build and operate the high speed electronics that can readout and process the huge volumes of data that will be generated. In particular, a key demand is that efficient triggers be built that will filter out as much of the background as possible at as early a stage as possible, without losing or biasing the tiny physics signal. These triggers must be fast and affordable. This thesis is concerned with one aspect of this scenario: how to provide a low cost but very fast switching system that can direct the streams of data coming from the detector into the computers that run the trigger algorithms. In this thesis the design and evaluation of a novel new switching chip, the RCUBE, developed in collaboration with European industry, is presented. It will be shown that such a chip could offer a solution to the data switching problems likely to be encountered in a typical future collider experiment such as the ATLAS experiment at CERN. To help with planning the use of such a chip, a simulation package is also developed based on the commercial OPNET packageAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN045972 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo