Data Processing with Dedicated Hardware

Resolution in one or two spatial dimensions, measurement of energy with high precision, and in particular the introduction of time resolution with high sampling rates drive data rates well beyond the capacity of "commercial off-the-shelf" PC technology. High-resolution transmission spectrometers for hard X-rays such as the "FOCAL" spectrometer are a major part of the PNI research activities at GSI addressing highfield QED. It strongly relies on 2D position sensitive and energy dispersive Ge(i) micro-strip detectors. To realize the full resolution of the system, pulse shape sampling with a sampling rate of 100 MHz is done, resulting in huge data rates. Diamond detectors used for ion detection as described in 3.3.4 will overcome the rate limitation of 2-dimensional Micro-Channel-Plate detectors and will also produce peak data rates that are not manageable by software. Pre-processing the raw data of these detectors can be done in an efficient way using programmable hardware. The basic components of the pre-processing hardware are always very similar: an input interface with a fast link to the detector electronics, a processing stage, and the standard interface to commercial hardware. The processing stage may consist of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA), Digital Signal Processors (DSP) or, more recently, Graphics Processing Units as embedded chips directly on board. Algorithms vary from simple hit detection up to complex waveform analysis or pattern processing. Deployment of programmable hardware allows the changing of algorithms by reprogramming and using the same boards in different areas of PNI. GSI has developed several generations of FPGA based pre-processing devices, together with the link and interface electronics for use in nuclear and high energy physics. We propose to first make a survey of available solutions of programmable hardware for signal pre-processing, using the expertise of HGF in nuclear and high-energy physics. Based on the outcome, we would then adopt an existing solution for PNI needs, if available, or join a current development and introduce the requests of PNI.