A two-level pattern trigger for the MAGIC telescope

Strong scientific motivation are pushing the second generation of ground base Cherenkov telescopes to lower as much as possible their energy threshold. MAGIC will be the biggest single telescope, in terms of collection area (250 m(2)), foreseen for the second-half of 2001. The large collection area, the new photodetector and the electronic design will allow the telescope to lower the energy threshold below 30 GeV. For this telescope a two-level pattern trigger is designed to work in severe high pixel rate. The MAGIC trigger architecture and its implementation is presented. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved