ATLAS Level-1 Calorimeter Trigger Hardware Progress Meeting - 17 August 1999 Minutes Present: Norman Gee, Bob Hatley, Tony Gillman, Viraj Perera 1. DSS motherboard status and test plans Viraj reported that the six boards had been received from the manufacturers last week, and appeared fine on inspection. Application of power revealed no shorts! Two of the boards were now out for assembly, and expected back by Friday 20th August. Basic VME checks will first be carried out in ID by Kevin, and then the modules will be fully tested in Lab 12 by James and Kevin, using the diagnostic software developed by Kithsiri. Before sending them to Birmingham for system tests they must be checked with the LVDS daughter-cards in place, for which James will provide the necessary programmed EEPROMs. Following the building work, Lab 12 must be “re-established” before testing can take place, and this work will be done on Friday 20th August. 2. Link cable assemblies Bob summarised the situation regarding obtaining the link cables. The halogen-free cable from AMP is hopefully acceptable to CERN on safety grounds (still to be confirmed – Richard is pursuing), but unfortunately can only be obtained with a minimum order length of 6km! Assemblies (with unwanted connectors) can be obtained directly from AMP, in lengths up to 20m, but only with a 12-week delivery. Our chosen solution is to order ten more 10m assemblies from a distributor (we already have ten 10m assemblies), where the delivery time is only 2-3 weeks. We can then cut these into shorter lengths, get the BERG connectors fitted by the Birmingham technicians and extend the existing 10m cable assemblies to 12m, 14m, 16m, etc. using feedthrough connectors. Bob will check that we have the necessary BERG parts. This is by no means a perfect solution, but it appears to be the only way we can carry out a scan of link cable lengths. Bob noted that care must be taken to avoid “parity twists” with this technique. 3. G-link daughter-card status Bob reported that the G-link Tx daughter-card layout was completed last week, and went out for manufacture on 11th August. Four boards will be made, of which two will be assembled and should be ready by the second week in September. James will provide the necessary programmed EEPROMs. 4. ROD and TCM prototype specifications Viraj has completed both revised documents. Tony will check the TCM document before it is posted on to the web. After being checked by Norman, the ROD document will be looked at again by the original reviewers before being posted to the web, as there have been radical changes to the specifications in the last few months. 5. CP ASIC specifications Viraj has sent Alan a copy of the draft 0 specifications document, containing proposed algorithm definitions. He and Alan will meet to discuss this on Thursday 19th August. 6. CMM/SMM prototype specifications Norman reported that his draft 0 specifications document is on hold until the module architecture is finalised. Two major issues concern Eric’s idea of having an extra module to perform the second stage of merging, and the location of the RoI readout logic. There were several other issues emerging from the recent telephone conference (pin counts, insertion forces, ground bounce, multi-linear energy scales for the SMM inputs, etc.), and it is clear that much more thinking and discussion is needed. We should plan on holding another telephone conference some time in the next week or two. 7. Any other business Bob reported that he has completed the schematic capture for the TTC fan-out board, and will now proceed to take this through to manufacture. He again asked for some more information regarding availability of the production TTCrx chips, etc. Tony promised to contact Philippe Farthouat once more. * Next meeting – Tuesday 24th August at 14.00 in CR01, R1 at RAL. Tony Gillman