Minutes 15/11/00 (RAL)
Present: A. Baird, Y. Fleming, S. Kolya, D. Mercer,
P. Newman, D. Sankey, M. Siyad, S. Taghavirad
For video conference,
E. Elsen, A. Schoening and H.C Schultz-Coulon were at the DESY end.
The following are notes on selected important
topics from the meeting. Not all
of the discussions are covered.
Manpower and Time Schedules for Front End Module
Saeed Taghavirad and Mohammed Siyad are now working with Adam Baird on the
Hardware design. In addition, Darren Ballard (drawing office) will spend
some time on the project.
Adam is happy that the overview specification of the FEM is in place and that
no obvious difficulties are expected in producing schematics. He
strongly favours a modular approach to the design.
Based on the allocated manpower resources and taking into account other
commitments, Adam has produced detailed
time schedules. The estimated date for tested FEM prototypes arriving at
DESY is mid September 2001. After this, the rough estimate for delivering
the full system is a further 9 months.
This time schedule lags significantly behind the schedule for the rest
of the FTT and important deadlines are missed. Most important is the
planned cosmic run from 1 June - 18 June 2001. Due to HERA recommissioning,
it is unlikely to be possible to switch the drift chambers on for
several months after this cosmic run. It was therefore felt that all
possibilities should be investigted to get the FEM back onto a schedule that
hits the cosmic run.
Adam was asked what would be required to get back on schedule. Another
experienced engineer and a second person in the drawing office with
Adam, Saeed, Mohhammed and Darren working as currently proposed may be
enough. It would also help if Adam were relieved of the project management
tasks in order to concentrate on the design. The third and most promising
possibility would be for the engineers currently allocated to work full time
on the FTT project. This could be achieved if work on the `generic' ADC /
FPGA module were postponed until after FTT prototypes were delivered.
This postponement would have implications for the Linear Collider Flavour
Identifier and LHCb within HEP and for a Japanese-funded
Synchrotron Radiation project at
Daresbury (Rapid). Adam stated that the FEM can be delivered for June
if this postponement were agreed. Clearly, there would be resistance
to this proposal. Dave S and Paul agreed to press the
case for this postponement within the HEP community.
Note added at time of writing minutes ....
Several things have happened since the meeting. - Dave has initiated
discussions with LHCb and LCFI, in an attempt to get their agreement
for a delay to the generic module. Dave and Paul also had brief discussions
with Ken Peach, who recognises the problem and the tight constraints
of H1 as a running experiment. Eckhard Elsen has written to Ken on behalf
of H1, stating the importance of meeting the deadline of the cosmic run.
Ken Peach has pointed out that HEP allocates money to pay for 20
engineers in Instrumentation. Due to the present staffing problems, a
significantly smaller amount of manpower is available. Ken
has therefore raised
the possibility of buying in further engineering effort with the extra HEP
money and has evaluated the level of additional effort that is required
to meet the deadlines for all projects. If that path fails,
it is possible that Ken would talk to all concerned
and asign priorities to the various HEP related tasks, to be discussed
with those in charge of Instrumentation. We are assured that the H1
FTT is recognised as being of very high priority by the Particle
Physics and Instrumentation divisions at RAL and that ever effort is
being made to get us back on schedule.
If the additional effort can be found for the FEM and assuming we get
back to a June 2001 target for tested prototypes at DESY, the following
target dates were identified .....
Provisional pin-outs
By end 2000
Finalised pin-outs
March 2001
Boards ready for software integration tests
mid May 2001
Cosmic tests at DESY
Early June 2001
Critical Path to Meet June Cosmic Run Deadline
Time schedules for all aspects of the L1 system were defined in order to
meet the June 2001 cosmic run deadline.
Front End Module
June 2001 (6 prototypes)
RAL-ID
VME
Schematics to Adam before end 2000
Manchester
Analogue Card
Pre-series (20) for June 2001
Manchester
Crate
Fully implemented for June 2001
Manchester / DESY (probably buy from from Wiener)
Service Module
Prototype at least for June 2001, ideally final
Manchester
Analogue cables
Specification needed before end 2000
Desy will take care of installing cables,
needed for March
Trigger Adaptor Card
Not on the critical path for June 2001
Manchester
Signal Transition Module
Needed for June 2001, but should be trivial
Birmingham or Manchester
VHDL for Qt algorithm
First version before end 2000, final for June 2001
RAL-PPD
VHDL for Segment Finding
June 2001
Birmingham
VHDL for L1 Trigger logic
Aim for June 2001, but not on critical path
Birmingham
FEM Control Software
Not on the critical path for June 2001
DESY?
System Integration Software
Not on the critical path for June 2001
DESY?
L2 / LVDS tests are planned for March. For this, Scott is asked to
provide an 8 slot prototype crate, which in any case will always
be useful for off-line tests / debugging.
Ordering of Components
In the video conference with DESY, it was pointed out that components
that are not immediately available can take 6 months to obtain. We
therefore need to start thinking about placing orders.
A full parts list is needed in the near future! The following
components were disussed at the meeting.
20k600 or 20k400 Segment Finding FPGAs.
Supplier may be Tame or EBV (though see
later note from Scott - not available from EBV-UK?)
Suggestion is to get at least enough 600's for one board to allow
plenty of space for debugging algorithms. Hopefully the final system
can be uilt with 400s.
SRAM for FEM (accessed by `back' FPGA).
Andre / Yves estimate that we need one
256k x 16 bit and one 128k x 32 bit per board.
Adam wants to buy micron BGA.
FPGA for readout controller
10k30A is the current favourite.
Scott plans to buy 6 of these for the 6 prototype boards.
EPROMs for each FPGA
Do we need to order these soon?
ADCs / pre-amp chips
Probably easy to get quickly.
Next meetings
No dates were set for future meetings, though the following possibilities
were mentioned ......
Technical L1 meetings
It was felt that more technical meetings between smaller numbers of
people are probably now required. The first of these should be
organised as soon as possible in January if not before.
Full FTT L1-3 Meeting
The `final specification' workshop in Dortmund in September was
generally considered a success. A further similar meeting was
proposed. Could this be arranged early in 2001 e.g. at Coseners' House?
L1 Video Conferences
Short (1-2 hour) video conferences between RAL, Birmingham and
Manchester would be a good way of keeping in touch with minimal
travelling. The frequency should be at least one per month.
One such meeting could take place before Christmas, though arranging
this in December may be difficult.
Compiled by P. Newman, 21/11/00. Many thanks to S. Kolya for use of his notes.