Data Readout Research Articles

A low-power DTOF image sensor with double-frame-multiplexing mode for long-range detection

A novel time-to-digital converter (TDC) operation mode, called double-frame-multiplexing (DFM), is proposed for time-of-flight (TOF) measurements. It is based on the separate detection of the minimum distance and depth of the measured targets, which reduces the power consumption of in-pixel TDCs and expands the maximum detection distance under high resolution. A 64 × 64 direct TOF image sensor chip is fabricated in a 0.18 μm CMOS process. Driven by a 125 MHz multi-phase clock and a 50 MHz data readout clock, the chip achieves a maximum frame rate of 20 kframe/s, a maximum detection distance of 750 m (5 μs), and a maximum depth of field of 3 m (20 ns) with a temporal resolution of 1 ns. The DFM mode reduces the average power consumption to 60 mW without consideration of SPADs. The worst-case measured differential nonlinearity is −0.61/+0.69 least significant bit (LSB) and the maximum integral nonlinearity is −1.06/+0.66 LSB.

Versatile DMA Engine for High-Energy Physics Data Acquisition Implemented with High-Level Synthesis

FPGA-based cards for data concentration and readout are often used in data acquisition (DAQ) systems for high-energy physics experiments. The DMA engines implemented in FPGA enable efficient data transfer to the processing system’s memory. This paper presents a versatile DMA engine. It may be used in systems with FPGA-equipped PCIe boards hosted in a server and MPSoC-based systems with programmable logic connected directly to the AXI system bus. The core part of the engine is implemented in HLS to simplify further development and modifications. The design is modular and may be easily integrated with the user’s DAQ logic, assuming it delivers the data via a standard AXI-Stream interface. The engine and accompanying software are designed with flexibility in mind. They offer a simple single-packet mode for debugging and a high-performance multi-packet mode fully utilizing the computational power of the processing system. The number of used DAQ cards and the amount of memory used for the DMA buffer may be modified in the runtime without rebooting the system. That is particularly useful in the development and test setups. This paper also presents the development and testing methodology. The whole design is open-source and available in public repositories.

The NA62 level 0 calorimetric trigger fast readout implementation, commissioning and data taking performances

The NA62 experiment at the CERN SPS aims to measure the branching ratio of the very rare kaon decay . The Calorimetric Level 0 Trigger identifies clusters in the electromagnetic and hadronic calorimeters. Along with the trigger data sent to the L0 Trigger Processor, readout data is collected to be sent to the L1 software trigger. In this work we present the novel implementation of the readout data collection and forwarding system in the multiple layers of the calorimetric trigger structure. We will also present the commissioning of the system and the performance evaluation on current data taking.

CIC: a radiation tolerant 65 nm data aggregation ASIC for the future CMS tracking detector at LHC

For the Phase II upgrade at HL-LHC, CMS needs a new Outer Tracker detector able to cope with reduced material budget, increased radiation tolerance and higher pile-up conditions with respect to LHC. The main feature of the Outer Tracker will be its inclusion at the first level of the CMS trigger system with data readout at 40 MHz. Two types of modules, Pixel-Strip and Strip-Strip will equip the Outer Tracker. Each module consists of a superposition of two silicon layers, able to detect charged particles, and an innovative readout electronics, allowing a significant data rate reduction. The Concentrator Integrated Circuit (CIC) is a 65 nm CMOS radiation tolerant front-end ASIC for both modules. It is considered a fundamental element of the future detector front-end chain due to its role in aggregating and compressing data from 8 front-end ASICs on each module. It reduces the data throughput by an order of magnitude. Two first version of the CIC were previously developed and tested. This paper will present the pre-production version, called CIC2.1, together with the functional and wafer test results.

Quality control testing of the HCC ASIC for the HL-LHC ATLAS ITk strip detector

The high-luminosity upgrade to the LHC requires a new silicon-strip charged-particle tracking detector for ATLAS. The HCC (Hybrid Controller Chip) is one of three new radiation-tolerant ASICs for this silicon-strip detector. As the interface to multiple binary readout ASICs, the HCC is responsible for buffering and forwarding control signals and readout requests to them as well as serializing their readout data into a 640 Mbps output. All HCCs undergo a suite of tests to verify their analog and digital functionality. The yield for the HCC exceeds the 90% target for production.

Nonideality Suppression and 16-State Multilevel Cell Storage Optimization in Phase Change Memory With Linear-Like Circuit

Phase change memory (PCM) provides unique advantages in embedded, mass storage, and in-memory computing. Resistance drift and noise are decreasing the resistance ratio of PCM cell in amorphous and crystalline state, thereby reducing the readout window and data reliability, especially making obstacles to multilevel storage and neural network computing applications. A novel linear-like circuit is proposed to reduce drift coefficient and noise significantly and enhance the adjacent conductance ratio of the 16-level multilevel storage technology. Test results show that the drift coefficient reduced by 78%, and the noise reduced by three orders of magnitude. By constructing a PCM-based spiking recurrent neural network (SRNN) neural network in PyTorch, we achieved 97.4% accuracy, demonstrating that linear-like circuit could suppress drift and noise and improve the multilevel storage performance, which reduces the training loss despite PCM nonidealities.

Lorenzetti Showers - A general-purpose framework for supporting signal reconstruction and triggering with calorimeters

Calorimeters play an important role in high-energy physics experiments. Their design includes electronic instrumentation, signal processing chain, computing infrastructure, and also a good understanding of their response to particle showers produced by the interaction of incoming particles. This is usually supported by full simulation frameworks developed for specific experiments so that their access is restricted to the collaboration members only. Such restrictions limit the general-purpose developments that aim to propose innovative approaches to signal processing, which may include machine learning and advanced stochastic signal processing models. This work presents the Lorenzetti Showers, a general-purpose framework that mainly targets supporting novel signal reconstruction and triggering strategies using segmented calorimeter information. This framework fully incorporates developments down to the signal processing chain level (signal shaping, energy estimation, and noise mitigation techniques) to allow advanced signal processing approaches in modern calorimetry and triggering systems. The developed framework is flexible enough to be extended in different directions. For instance, it can become a tool for the phenomenology community to go beyond the usual detector design and physics process generation approaches. Program summaryProgram Title: Lorenzetti ShowersCPC Library link to program files:https://doi.org/10.17632/sy64367452.1Developer's repository link:https://github.com/lorenzetti-hep/lorenzettiLicensing provisions: GPLv3Programming language: Python, C++.Nature of problem: In experimental high-energy physics, simulation is essential for experiment preparation, design and interpretations of ongoing acquisitions. Especially for calorimeters, an accurate simulation that can describe detector geometry, behavior to different physics processes and signal generation close to the readout electronics and data acquisition levels is required to properly develop signal processing and computational methods. Such detectors may face very challenging demands arising from the new designs, such as pileup mitigation and noise reduction tasks under unprecedented levels. In this sense, simulation requirements continuously increase in complexity and performance, because new physics searches require large datasets and accurate modeling to experimental effects.Solution method: The Lorenzetti Showers is an integrated software framework that provides complete calorimeter information close enough to the electronic readout chain. Thus, the proposed framework allows users to access cell readout values, configurable sensor pulse-shapes, crosstalk modeling, and different energy estimation methods. It aims at supporting designs that target low or high pileup operation conditions in an easy-to-use modular structure. The developed framework is based on Pythia 8 (particle generation) and Geant4 (interactions with the calorimeter technique under analysis). An efficient data recording structure was used to allow full access to the Lorenzetti Showers outputs. In summary, the Lorenzetti Showers tool provides to the scientific community a user-friendly, flexible, user-oriented, and low-level calorimeter simulation framework.Additional comments including restrictions and unusual features: The framework current version provides the implementation of a generic segmented calorimeter (electromagnetic and hadronic sections), which may be modified by the user, if desired. It allows the generation of particles interactions using Pythia 8 (native) or any generator compatible with the HepMC format (which may be integrated using an external input file) and propagation through a user-configurable calorimeter using Geant4.

Integration of microlenses on surface-micromachined optical ultrasound transducer array to improve detection sensitivity for parallel data readout.

This Letter reports the integration of microlenses (MLs) on a surface-micromachined optical ultrasound transducer (SMOUT) array to enable parallel ultrasound data readout from a multiplicity of elements. The MLs are fabricated by photoresist patterning and reflow, and their focal lengths are optimized with parametric studies. Experiments are conducted to characterize the acoustic responsivity and its uniformity of the SMOUT-ML elements under different conditions. The temporal stability of SMOUT-ML elements immersed in water is assessed by monitoring their acoustic response continuously for 1 week. Parallel ultrasound signal readout is simulated with a small group of SMOUT-ML elements. Experimental results show that high acoustic sensitivity and excellent long-term stability can be achieved by the ML-integrated SMOUT array, which could provide a promising approach for enabling parallel ultrasound data acquisition for improving the imaging speed of 3D acoustic tomography.

Lensless complex amplitude demodulation based on deep learning in holographic data storage

To increase the storage capacity in holographic data storage (HDS), the information to be stored is encoded into a complex amplitude. Fast and accurate retrieval of amplitude and phase from the reconstructed beam is necessary during data readout in HDS. In this study, we proposed a complex amplitude demodulation method based on deep learning from a single-shot diffraction intensity image and verified it by a non-interferometric lensless experiment demodulating four-level amplitude and four-level phase. By analyzing the correlation between the diffraction intensity features and the amplitude and phase encoding data pages, the inverse problem was decomposed into two backward operators denoted by two convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to demodulate amplitude and phase respectively. The experimental system is simple, stable, and robust, and it only needs a single diffraction image to realize the direct demodulation of both amplitude and phase. To our investigation, this is the first time in HDS that multilevel complex amplitude demodulation is achieved experimentally from one diffraction intensity image without iterations.

Achieving excitation wavelength-power-dependent colorful luminescence via multiplexing of dual lanthanides in fluorine oxide particles for multilevel anticounterfeiting.

The optical characteristics of multimode luminescent materials like multimode luminescence (photoluminescence, afterglow, thermoluminescence) and a multi-excitation source (light, thermal, mechanical force) play crucial roles in optical data storage and readout, document security and anticounterfeiting. A higher level of advanced anticounterfeiting may rely on multimode anticounterfeiting materials that can realize multicolor luminescence. Here, a highly integrated multimode and multicolor Y7O6F9:Er3+,Eu3+ material is developed through multiplexing of dual lanthanides in fluorine oxide particles. In photoluminescence and photoluminescence/up-conversion luminescence modes, the material Y7O6F9:Er3+,Eu3+ has the characteristic of excitation wavelength and power dependence. In the photoluminescence mode, under excitation at 254 nm and 365 nm, Y7O6F9:Er3+ and Y7O6F9:Eu3+ showed bright red and green emissions, respectively. In the photoluminescence/up-conversion mode, under the increased excitation power from 0.2 to 2.0 W cm-2, the color of luminescence emission can be finely tuned from red to orange, yellow and green. Taking this unique excitation wavelength-power-dependent luminescence property into account, a multilevel anticounterfeiting device with the Lily pattern was designed. The device readily integrates the advantages of the excitation wavelength-dependent photoluminescence emissions and excitation power-dependent photoluminescence emissions in one overall device. These findings offer unique insight for designing highly integrated multimode, multicolor luminescence materials and advanced anticounterfeiting technology toward a wide variety of applications, particularly multilevel anticounterfeiting devices.

Trigger-less readout and unbiased data quality monitoring of the CMS drift tubes muon detector

The CMS experiment 40 MHz data scouting project is aimed at intercepting the data produced at the level of the detectors’ front-end without the filters induced by hardware-based triggers. A first implementation is realized by the trigger-less reading and processing of a fraction of the Drift Tube (DT) muon detector, equipped with a preliminary version of the so-called Phase-2 Upgrade on-detector electronics boards. The data are transferred via high-speed optical links to back-end boards independently from the central experiment data acquisition (DAQ), permitting real-time detector status monitoring via receiving all the signals produced at the front-end level, and providing an unbiased estimate of the CMS DT hit-rate under various data-taking conditions.

FPGA Optimized Accelerator of DCNN with Fast Data Readout and Multiplier Sharing Strategy

FPGA Optimized Accelerator of DCNN with Fast Data Readout and Multiplier Sharing Strategy

Multifunctional Helicene‐Based Ytterbium Coordination Polymer Displaying Circularly Polarized Luminescence, Slow Magnetic Relaxation and Room Temperature Magneto‐Chiral Dichroism**

AbstractThe combination of physical properties sensitive to molecular chirality in a single system allows the observation of fascinating phenomena such as magneto‐chiral dichroism (MChD) and circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) having potential applications for optical data readout and display technology. Homochiral monodimensional coordination polymers of YbIIIwere designed from a 2,15‐bis‐ethynyl‐hexahelicenic scaffold decorated with two terminal 4‐pyridyl units. Thanks to the coordination of the chiral organic chromophore to Yb(hfac)3units (hfac−=1,1,1,5,5,5‐hexafluoroacetylaconate), efficient NIR‐CPL activity is observed. Moreover, the specific crystal field around the YbIIIinduces a strong magnetic anisotropy which leads to a single‐molecule magnet (SMM) behaviour and a remarkable room temperature MChD. The MChD‐structural correlation is supported by computational investigations.

Multifunctional Helicene-Based Ytterbium Coordination Polymer Displaying Circularly Polarized Luminescence, Slow Magnetic Relaxation and Room Temperature Magneto-Chiral Dichroism.

The combination of physical properties sensitive to molecular chirality in a single system allows the observation of fascinating phenomena such as magneto-chiral dichroism (MChD) and circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) having potential applications for optical data readout and display technology. Homochiral monodimensional coordination polymers of YbIII were designed from a 2,15-bis-ethynyl-hexahelicenic scaffold decorated with two terminal 4-pyridyl units. Thanks to the coordination of the chiral organic chromophore to Yb(hfac)3 units (hfac- =1,1,1,5,5,5-hexafluoroacetylaconate), efficient NIR-CPL activity is observed. Moreover, the specific crystal field around the YbIII induces a strong magnetic anisotropy which leads to a single-molecule magnet (SMM) behaviour and a remarkable room temperature MChD. The MChD-structural correlation is supported by computational investigations.

The Monitoring of Pixel System (MOPS) chip for the Detector Control System of the ATLAS ITk Pixel Detector

The ATLAS experiment will get a new inner tracker (ITk) during the phase II upgrade. The innermost part is called the Pixel Detector. A new Detector Control System (DCS) is being developed to provide control and monitoring of the ITk pixel detector. The Monitoring of Pixel System (MOPS) chip is an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) foreseen in the DCS to independently monitor the voltage and the temperature across the modules which constitute the front-end electronics responsible for tracking and data readout. The chip is developed by the Bergische Universität Wuppertal in collaboration with the Fachhochschule Dortmund. The modules which need to be monitored are powered serially in a chain. The MOPS chip has a 12-bit ADC which can read up to 34 channels. Controller Area Network (CAN) and CANopen protocols are used for communication. The final chip is required to be radiation hard up to an ionizing dose of 500 Mrad. In this paper, the functionality of the chip will be discussed, some results from the first version of the chip will be presented as well as a brief overview of the second version.

An Ex Vivo Study of Wireless Linkage Distance between Implantable LC Resonance Sensor and External Readout Coil.

The wireless monitoring of key physiological parameters such as heart rate, respiratory rate, temperature, and pressure can aid in preventive healthcare, early diagnosis, and patient-tailored treatment. In wireless implantable sensors, the distance between the sensor and the reader device is prone to be influenced by the operating frequency, as well as by the medium between the sensor and the reader. This manuscript presents an ex vivo investigation of the wireless linkage between an implantable sensor and an external reader for medical applications. The sensor was designed and fabricated using a cost-effective and accessible fabrication process. The sensor is composed of a circular planar inductor (L) and a circular planar capacitor (C) to form an inductor-capacitor (LC) resonance tank circuit. The reader system comprises a readout coil and data acquisition instrumentation. To investigate the effect of biological medium on wireless linkage, the readout distance between the sensor and the readout coil was examined independently for porcine and ovine tissues. In the bench model, to mimic the bio-environment for the investigation, skin, muscle, and fat tissues were used. The relative magnitude of the reflection coefficient (S11) at the readout coil was used as a metric to benchmark wireless linkage. A readable linkage signal was observed on the readout coil when the sensor was held up to 2.5 cm under layers of skin, muscle, and fat tissue. To increase the remote readout distance of the LC sensor, the effect of the repeater coil was also investigated. The experimental results showed that the magnitude of the reflection coefficient signal was increased 3-3.5 times in the presence of the repeater coil, thereby increasing the signal-to-noise ratio of the detected signal. Therefore, the repeater coil between the sensor and the readout coil allows a larger sensing range for a variety of applications in implanted or sealed fields.

A Waveform Sampling Prototype ASIC for Picosecond-Level Time Measurement

This article presents the design and test results of a waveform sampling application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) based on the switched capacitor array (SCA). It integrates eight differential-input channels, and each channel consists of a 256-cell capacitor array, 256 12-bit Wilkinson analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), and a serial data readout. A sampling rate of up to 5 Gsps is achieved with a low-jitter delay-locked loop (DLL). Two shared coarse counters running at the rising and falling edges of the reference clock are used to extend the time measurement range. Several crosstalk reduction strategies were adopted in the circuit design, especially in the clock generation circuit and the digitization circuit. The ASIC has been fabricated in 180-nm CMOS process. The test results show that the random noise is approximately 0.7-mV rms after the fixed-pattern noise correction and that the precision of waveform timing is better than 7-ps rms with the sampling interval correction.

A microfluidic Braille valve platform for on-demand production, combinatorial screening and sorting of chemically distinct droplets.

Droplet microfluidics is a powerful tool for a variety of biological applications including single-cell genetics, antibody discovery and directed evolution. All these applications make use of genetic libraries, illustrating the difficulty of generating chemically distinct droplets for screening applications. This protocol describes our Braille Display valving platform for on-demand generation of droplets with different chemical contents (16 different reagents and combinations thereof), as well as sorting droplets with different chemical properties, on the basis of fluorescence signals. The Braille Display platform is compact, versatile and cost efficient (only ~US$1,000 on top of a standard droplet microfluidics setup). The procedure includes manufacturing of microfluidic chips, assembly of custom hardware, co-encapsulation of cells and drugs into droplets, fluorescence detection of readout signals and data analysis using shared, freely available LabVIEW and Python packages. As a first application, we demonstrate the complete workflow for screening cancer cell drug sensitivities toward 74 conditions. Furthermore, we describe here an assay enabling the normalization of the observed drug sensitivity to the number of cancer cells per droplet, which additionally increases the robustness of the system. As a second application, we also demonstrate the sorting of droplets according to enzymatic activity. The drug screening application can be completed within 2 d; droplet sorting takes ~1 d; and all preparatory steps for manufacturing molds, chips and setting up the Braille controller can be accomplished within 1 week.

Silicon photonic devices for optical data readout in high-energy physics detectors

Silicon photonics is standing out as a potential technology for the development of radiation-tolerant optical transceivers. In this work, we report the preliminary electro-optical characterization of two radiation-hardened-by-design shallow-etched Mach–Zehnder modulators with different doping configurations.

Wearable Capacitive Pressure Sensor for Contact and Non-Contact Sensing and Pulse Waveform Monitoring.

Sensitive and flexible pressure sensors have invoked considerable interest for a broad range of applications in tactile sensing, physiological sensing, and flexible electronics. The barrier between high sensitivity and low fabrication cost needs to be addressed to commercialize such flexible pressure sensors. A low-cost sacrificial template-assisted method for the capacitive sensor has been reported herein, utilizing a porous Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) polymer and a multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) composite-based dielectric layer. The sensor shows high sensitivity of 2.42 kPa−1 along with a low limit of detection of 1.46 Pa. The high sensitivity originates from adding MWCNT to PDMS, increasing the composite polymer’s dielectric constant. Besides this, the pressure sensor shows excellent stability at a cyclic loading of 9000 cycles, proving its reliability for long-lasting application in tactile and physiological sensing. The high sensitivity of the sensor is suitable for the detection of small deformations such as pulse waveforms as well as tactile pressure sensing. In addition, the paper demonstrates a simultaneous contact and non-contact sensing capability suitable for dual sensing (pressure and proximity) with a single data readout system. The dual-mode sensing capability may open opportunities for realizing compact systems in robotics, gesture control, contactless applications, and many more. The practicality of the sensor was shown in applications such as tactile sensing, Morse code generator, proximity sensing, and pulse wave sensing.