SPD VFE

The SPD Very Front End board:

• Functionality: perform the discrimination between photons and charged particles
• Includes different components:
  • Photomultiplier tube (PMT): convert light into electric charge.
  • ASICs: integrate the PMT charge and apply the thresholds to discriminate signals at 40 MHz.
  • Control unit: Actel ProASIC FPGA.
  • LVDS serializers: send data at 480 Mbit/s over 30 m cable.
• All components are radiation tolerant qualified.

More info here.

SPD Power Regulator Board

SPD Power Regulator Board:

• Functionality: VFE card power source (6 different voltages).
• May power up to 7 VFE cards.
• Current & voltage real time monitoring.
• Temperatire monitoring of all connected cards.
• Fast fuses to minimize radiation SEL effects on VFE serializers.

More info here.

Multipurpose test board

FPGA based multipurpose test boards:

• Function: general solution for prototyping and testing
• Altera commercial version discontinued
• Extended design based in the same philosophy but with
  • increased number of pins
  • a more powerful FPGA (Stratix II)
  • USB connection to PC for both data transfer and for FPGA programming