The design of a flexible Global Calorimeter Trigger system for the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment

We have developed a novel design of triggering system as part of the pipelined hardware Level-1 trigger logic for the CMS experiment at LHC. The Global Calorimeter Trigger is the last element in the processing of calorimeter data, and provides most of the input to the final Level-1 decision. We present the detailed functional requirements for this system. Our design meets the requirements using generic, configurable Trigger Processing Modules built from commercial programmable logic and high-speed serial data links. We describe the hardware, firmware and software components of this solution. CMS has chosen an alternative solution to build the final trigger system; we discuss the implications of our experiences for future development projects along similar lines.