19/04/23 Sheffield University 1

Target Electronics • Recap - Decision has been made to rebuild the target electronics

control system so that it is upgraded from being an expert system to fully turn-key. Fundamentally the aim is to have a system that can be fully controlled via a PC interface and will fit into the MICE EPICs framework.

• We are going to use a FPGA board that was designed at Imperial to be a general purpose controller. Plenty of I/O for control purposes and a USB interface to provide the link for soft control / DAQ.

• 4 USB DAQ PCB boards have been manufactured and there are now (at least) 2 fully functional USB DAQ boards. One is now at Sheffield and the others are at Imperial.

• Software Drivers for the PC side of the USB interface and the VHDL code to run the USB chip on the USB DAQ board have already been written and tested. These were provided by Matt Noy.

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USBDAQ

USB Mini-B

1.2V Regulator

2.5/3.3V Regulator

Cypress SX2 USB Interface

Differential / Single Ended

User IO

Single Ended

User IO

1M Gate Spartan 3

FPGA

4Mb PROM

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Target Electronics • James Leaver is using these drivers to create the software that will

run the PC/board interface. Communication between the board and a host PC has now been established.

• Paul Smith is currently learning VHDL so that a replica (with improvements!) of the digital components in the present target electronics can be synthesised onto the FPGA. It is expected to be a couple more weeks before he is in a position to start translating the current target hardware over to the FPGA.

• There will be a requirement for several analogue boards to be interfaced to the USB DAQ board. Some of these boards will represent upgrades to the analogue electronics currently operating in the target controller and there is the possibility that it may be possible to establish the complete target DAQ through the FPGA board and USB interface. All these boards will need designing from scratch as current boards are incompatible with the USB DAQ.

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• Once P. Smith is in a better position to appraise the details of how the current hardware can be synthesised onto the FPGA a more formal and detailed plan will be drawn up between James and Paul outlining both the stages of the upgrade process and the intended improvements to the target control system. Broadly speaking the process can be broken down into:

– Synthesize current digital system (effectively replicating its current function).

– Ensure that the replicated system can be fully controlled via a GUI interface and establish bi-directional data flow to the controller.

– Create Daughter boards for Analogue IO.

– Integrate Target DAQ (if possible) - will require additional daughter boards.

– Add a standalone interface to USB DAQ board so it can be fully controlled independently of the host PC.