TwinMux Testing System

During the CERN summer school program, I joined the CMS Muon Drift Tube (DT) group, and mainly worked on two projects, which, both of them, are related to the electronics of a new data concentrator called the “TwinMux”. My first task within the TwinMux project was to build an integrated software test station in order to run several tests on the functionality of the TwinMux hardware. Essentially, I had to integrate existing testing scripts, adding several new ones, into a single user-friendly testing platform which can perform quick, convenient and automated hardware testing. Later, I was also involved in the design of the local technical triggering of the DT. Such system relies on some firmware functionality built in the TwinMux and controlled by software. I had attempted two different approaches to design the communication topology of all the 12 TwinMux cards in order to send a user-defined logical operation to the read-out electronics. The final goal of this system is to drive local trigger signal for testing and hardware commissioning purposes.