Abstract
The realisation of the Timepix3 chip opened the way for new opportunities in research areas such as particle tracking with both semiconductor sensors and gas filled time projection chambers, electron microscopy and imaging mass spectrometry. To exploit the full capability of the Timepix3 chip, Nikhef developed a compact read-out system, called SPIDR that can deal with the high data output of 80 Mhits per chip per second. The main read-out board connects to both 10 Gb Ethernet and 1 Gb Ethernet devices. The latter obviously at a reduced rate. The main board connects to individual chip-carrier boards via a standard FMC connector. The system is designed such that support for other readout chips is foreseen via reprogramming of the FPGA. Besides the Timepix3 chip also the Medipix3 chip is currently supported. Both the main board and the chip carrier boards are cooled, via the housing and a fan to obtain a stable temperature of around 40 ± 0.2 °C for the Timepix3 chips. We will present the system and the results obtained with the LHCb beam telescope at CERN and proton radiography data obtained with a time projection chamber based on GEM technology.
Highlights
In this paper we have presented the newly developed SPIDR system that can be used to read out Medipix3 and Timepix3 chips at their full output capacity
We have shown that the system is fully operational as it was used successfully in the tests for the LHCb test beam at CERN, the proton radiography experiment at KVI and the spectral images taken at Nikhef
Summary
The system consists of the housing with the cooling and electronic boards. The electronics need firmware in the FPGA and software to be operated. The electronics consist of a main board to which a number of mezzanine boards are connected with dedicated functions like power distribution and bias voltage supply. Each of these components will be described below
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