The readout driver (ROD) for the ATLAS liquid argon calorimeters

The Readout Driver (ROD) for the Liquid Argon calorimeter of the ATLAS detector is described. Each ROD module receives triggered data from 256 calorimeter cells via two fiber-optics 1.28 Gbit/s links with a 100 kHz event rate (25 kbit/event). Its principal function is to determine the precise energy and timing of the signal from discrete samples of the waveform, taken each period of the LHC clock (25 ns). In addition, it checks, histograms, and formats the digital data stream. A demonstrator system, consisting of a motherboard and several daughter-board processing units (PUs) was constructed and is currently used for tests in the lab. The design of this prototype board is presented here. The board offers maximum modularity and allows the development and testing of different PU designs based on today's leading integer and floating point DSPs. (3 refs).