Speaker
M. Purschke
(Brookhaven National Laboratory)
Description
The concepts and technologies applied in data acquisition systems have changed
dramatically over the past 15 years. Generic DAQ components and standards such as
CAMAC and VME have largely been replaced by dedicated FPGA and ASIC boards, and
dedicated real-time operation systems like OS9 or VxWorks have given way to Linux-
based trigger processor and event building farms. We have also seen a shift from
standard or proprietary bus systems used in event building to GigaBit networks and
commodity components, such as PCs. With the advances in processing power, network
throughput, and storage technologes, today's data rates in large experiments
routinely reach hundreds of MegaBytes/s.
We will present examples of contemporary DAQ systems from different experiments, try
to identify or categorize new approaches, and will compare the performance and
throughput of existing DAQ systems with the projected data rates of the LHC
experiments to see how close we have come to accomplish these goals. We will also
try to look beyond the field of High-Energy Physics and see if there are trends and
technologies out there which are worth keeping an eye on.
Primary author
M. Purschke
(Brookhaven National Laboratory)
