Hi Stefan

Thanks for your input.

We are in the process of assemble another PCB board.

so soon we can compere between two boards.

As for the PLLEN bit, we set it.

We checked several times the soldering of the DRS4 using a microscope.

Everything looks ok.

In what method do you recommend to solder the DRS4?

Thanks for the invitation to meet.

120Km is not so far J

mony

Hi

We have resolve the problem, the Dtap is now working correctly.

There were two problems:

1. After configuration we put the all address bits to one (standby mode)

We are now setting the address bits to all zero. Failure

to do so result in Dtap  stop toggling after several hundred milliseconds.

1. The DMODE bit in contradiction to the data sheet should be set to 0

And not to 1.

Is this a known bug in the chip?

Only bay setting DMODE to zero we got the Dtap to work correctly.

The PLL locks after 1 milisec.

If we set it to one we get Dtap that stop toggling after several hundred milliseconds.

We have test it on two boards, they both worked in the same.

Never did we get a One shot  Dtap.

Did you published a errata page to the drs4?

Thanks, Mony

While I can understand 1., I'm puzzeled by 2.

If you put the chip in standby mode, the internal current sources are switched off, which of course make the domino wave non-functional. This is clearly stated in the data sheet.

Concerning the DMODE bit, we operate all (!) our chips with DMODE=1. Actually this is the default value. After a reset, all register bits are "1", which enables the PLL and causes DTAP to oscillate. If DMODE=1, the DTAP signal should toggle only once (!) since the domino loop is not closed. So the scope traces you showed previously are consistent with the standby mode, but not possible with ANY setting of DMODE.

Stefan

surrey i forgot to update..

after carefully examining our VHDL we found out that there are brief times that we put A0-A3 in 1111

after making shore that a0-a3 never get 1111 value thae drs4 woks as expected.

The dtap toggols ok.

We can sample and read all the data channels.

So, putting A0-A3 value of 1111 even for very short period  " confuse " the DRS and then it start to behave in a strange manner.

mony

Thanks for the update, I will add a note into the data sheet.

Hello,

I am trying to get a DRS4 board to run on Windows 10. I am having problems with the driver installation. I am getting the follwoing message

"There is no driver selected for the device information set or element"

I had specified the path to look for the driver as C:\ProgramFilesx86\DRS\driver\. I also tried the option to look online for the driver. None works. Can anyone help?

Thanks,

Laura

Dear Laura

You need to disable driver signature enforcement.  Then try again with path option.

 It helped me.

http://www.drivethelife.com/windows-drivers/how-to-disable-driver-signature-enforcement-on-windows-10-8-7-xp-vista.html

Best regards,

Volodymyr

Hi Stefan,

According to the datasheet DRS_rev09, the write signal is always 16 cells wide. So when the domino wave runs in infinite mode and be stopped by setting DENABLE low , there are always 16 cells capicitors tracking the input signal . It means that the effective sample cells is 1024-16=1008? That's confusing. 

Look at the attached picture. For simplicity, only 4 cells are open and tracking the input signal. Time is flowing from top to bottom. So initially, a train of 4 cells is open. When it's stopped, the train stops not immediately, but kind of "runs against a wall" at the stop cell. So each cell is open for four time ticks effectively, and you can use all 1024 cells. 

Hello,

Is it possible to have different sampling rates in multi-board configuration? I tried using the scope application but I am unable to change the sampling rate independently.

Best,

Javier.

No, that's unfortunately not possible.

Stefan

Dear All,

with the older software for my V5 Board i did not have the problem, that the distance between the sampling points (in time) is not the same (e.g. a sampling point all 200ps for 5GS/s). 

How can i fix this?

Can someone provide me the software for the board which is old enough to not have this problem. All my Root interpreters produce problems with this new data format.  Which version would be old enough?

All the best and thanks a lot,

Hans

The sampling points are NOT equidestant, they have varying bin widths of 150ps to 250ps at 5GS/s. That's due the way the DRS4 chip works. You might have neglected that fact in the past, but that would have led to poor timing resolutions (typically 1-2ns resolution only). To get bins with the same width, you have to treat your waveform as a real X/Y points (or better U/T), and the re-sample that cure, maybe spline-interpolated, at 200ps bins.

Stefan

Sorry.... but is there a solution or a Root Macro, that reads the waveforms into a Root-Tree? I simply can not work anymore with the data. 

Can you tell me, which software was in use in early 2017?

All the best,

Hans

 elog:361

I have noticed some differences in the source code between Windows (4.0.0) and Linux (4.0.1) Version.

drs_exam.cpp: In the windows version when setting the trigger there is no part "if (b->GetBoardType() == 8) {...} else {...}" like in Linux version. So under Windows drs_exam does not start readout of DRS 4 Evalutation Board V4, because it does not get the trigger, under linux the board can be read out succesfull. I have found out, that adding the missing part solves the problem for the windows version.

drs.cpp (Windows Version), line 2101, function "int DRSBoard::SetTriggerDelayNs(int delay)":

There is no operation which  calculates the variable "fTriggerDelayNs" out of variable "ticks" like in function "int DRSBoard::SetTriggerDelayPercent(int delay)" (Line 2073). So "fTriggerDelayNs" can get diverse values when using one of the Trigger Setting Functions. Was this intended?

Thanks for reporting the problem in drs_exam.cpp. The windows and linux versions sometimes differ a bit. I'm working right now on a complete new version, wich will bring both together again.

Concerning fTriggerDelayNs and ticks, they are correlated. One tick is a single delay unit in the FPGA. On the newest boards the unit is 4.8ns long. So

ticks = fTriggerDelayNs / 4.8

fTriggerDelayNs = ticks * 4.8

fTriggerDelayNs gets set at the first line of SetTriggerDelayNs:

int DRSBoard::SetTriggerDelayNs(int delay)
/* set trigger delay in nanoseconds */
{
   short ticks, reg;
   fTriggerDelayNs = delay;

So I cannot see how fTriggerDelayNS should get diverse values?

Hi Stefan,

    on our board some DRS chips draw a lot of current through DVDD after power-up and heat up significantly--it is true that our board doesn't have weak pull-down resistors at DENABLE and DWRITE output pins of FPGA, so this problem might have been caused by that, but a reinitialization of the Domino circuit doesn't help either. We tried different capacitors at DVDD and it seemed the larger the capacitance, the better the result--with a capacitor larger than 10nF some of the DRS chips could work happily in the normal way while if the capacitor is only 4.7nF all of them got very hot. Would you please provide some suggestions why there should be such a problem?

    Thanks a lot!

I found that sometimes even a reinitialization fails if the pull-down resistors are missing. So instead playing with capacitors at DVDD, I would just solder two resistors on the board which should fix the problem completely.

 Thanks! After adding pull-down resistors the voltages come back to normal.

However there is another weird problem that arises: a reset pulse seems unable to set the internal shift registers to default values. For example, after reset without addressing the Config Register the PLL will not try to lock with external reference clock. Even if I explicitly address the Config Register after reset and have the PLL locked, some channels of the chip will give null output during readout while other channels work normally. Could it be that some channels are not initiated properly with the Domino circuit?