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  29   Wed Dec 30 14:28:33 2009 aliyilmaznormal_mode_in_drs_exam.cpp

 Dear Mr. S. Ritt

       i am Ms. student , am working with your DRS4 board to calculate the time of flight of the cosmic particle which passes trough  the hodoscope . i see the signals at scope , which is negative (i don't want to take positive side of the signal).

       i am using your drs_exap.cpp file to  take the data, i set the analog trigger source , threshold level is negative, like this(b->SetTriggerLevel(-30, true) ); but the exam file also registers the positive side of signal (i think  that is spike or internal reflection), is it possible to eliminate this spike? Also i want to register  the data just after the threshold value, but that is always triggered, i think that caused from the mode. Is it possible to set the trigger mode to normal in exam file?,and  how can i do that?

 

Best regards.

Sincerely,

 Ali YILMAZ (ali.yilmaz@roma1.infn.it)

  28   Tue Dec 22 09:07:27 2009 Stefan RittTrigger of DRS4

Jinhong Wang wrote:

Stefan Ritt wrote:

Jinhong Wang wrote:

Stefan Ritt wrote:

Jinhong Wang wrote:

Dear Mr. S. Ritt

     The following is my confusion about the trigger of DRS4. It mainly concertrates on the generation of trigger signal to stop DRS4 sampling process for readout of sampled waveform.

     As metioned in the datasheet of DRS4, the chip samples the analog input every domino sampling period.  After finished sampling a waveform, the sampling process can be stoped by lowering the DWRITE while keeping DENABLE high. But the analog input is asychronous to the Domino CLK.  Then, how can we know when to  stop the domino sampling process to read out the sampled waveform? Of course, a trigger can be used. But from my present knowledge of DRS4, trigger can only be generated from analog input. Analog input is splited into two channels, one to DRS4 analog input, the other to FPGA as the trigger. However, splitting analog inputs increases the system design complexity, and may lower the total performace. So what is your suggestion?

    In our system, there are 8 analog inputs to a signal DRS4 chip, the outputs of DRS4 chip are connected to an 8-channel 14 bit ADC ( AD9252). It wold be kind of you to inform me about the most applicable approach for readout of DRS4 sampled wavefrom.

   Best regards.

   Sincerely,

   Jinhong Wang (wangjinh@mail.ustc.edu.cn)

Indeed you have to make an external trigger. The evaluation board uses the "transparent mode" of the DRS4 to "mirror" the input signal at the output, then puts a comparator there. The schematics of the evaluation board is in the manual. This does then not degrate the analog performance. You can of course also split the signal at the input, this will only add a minor additional load to the input signal, since the load of the DRS4 chips itself is much bigger than that of any comparator.

An alternative is to turn on the transparent mode and continuously digitize all 8 outputs with your AD9252. Then you make the trigger purely digital in your FPGA. You can put there a comparator, or even more complex logic like multiplicity etc. Note however that this causes some latency, since the ADC has a pipeline which is quite long, so you have to buffer the latency of your trigger in the analog window of the DRS4 sampling cells. Like if you run the DRS4 at 1 GSPS, you can accomodate 1024 ns of sampling depth, which is good for maybe 500 ns of trigger latency plus 500 ns of the waveform of interest.

Thank you. The transparent mode can be really helpful. Can you provide me in more details of the chip's transparent mode? I am still confused about the following aspects.

I notice that DRS4 samples the analog wave in the way "clear before write", and in the transparent mode, there will be certain delay before the trigger logic stops the sampling process. So,does it mean that the waveform recording process per Domino sampling cycle will not degrade the amplitude of the analog signal? Hence, for two idential analog inputs, one with a trigger latency of 500 ns and the other of 510 ns, the sampled waveform is identical, what differs is the starting number of the first active sampling cell, where the reading process considered to be started.   Is that right? Looking forward to your insight.

Best regrads.

Sincerely,

         Jinhong Wang (wangjinh@mail.ustc.edu.cn)

The amplitude of the analog signal is not degraded by the transparent mode, since the signal is buffered on the chip, and the output of this buffer is send off the chip. The waveform digitizing of course requires quite some current to charge up all capacitors, so there is  maximum current of ~1mA for 5 GSPS. If you only have a weak signal source, your bandwidth might be limited by that. On the evaluation board for example we use passive transformers to produce the differential input signal from a single-ended signal. Although the transformers are rated 1 GHz Bandwidth, we only achieve 200 MHz with the passive transformers. By using active high speed differential drivers, you can get about 700 MHz right now.

If you have two channels with 500 ns and 510 ns trigger latency, there is no difference in the "domino stop position" since there is only one domino circuit per chip which can be stopped. So the stop position is the same for all eight channels on a chip. 

 So you mean there is an analog buffer per channel? The analog signal is buffered there, before entering the sampling cells? Then, when will the buffer content be released and cleared? How shall I handle "Dwite" and "Denable" during a complete operation when an analog signal arrives in the transparent mode? I cannot find more information beyond the datasheet,  a detailed description of the transparent mode (and the analog buffer, if possible) will be really helpful for me.

Best,

Sincerely,

Jinhong Wang (wangjinh@mail.ustc.edu.cn)

There is one analog buffer per channel at the output, as indicated on the FUNCTIONAL BLOCK DIAGRAM of the datasheet. The section ANALOG INPUTS clearly states that the input signal has to load directly the sampling capacitors.

All other people using the chip so far correctly understood these things so far, so I believe more information beyond the datasheet is not necessary. I believe you have a principal problem of understanding, which can hardly be clarified by email. Best would be if you directly call me, I can then explain things to you.

  27   Tue Dec 22 01:30:55 2009 Jinhong WangTrigger of DRS4

Stefan Ritt wrote:

Jinhong Wang wrote:

Stefan Ritt wrote:

Jinhong Wang wrote:

Dear Mr. S. Ritt

     The following is my confusion about the trigger of DRS4. It mainly concertrates on the generation of trigger signal to stop DRS4 sampling process for readout of sampled waveform.

     As metioned in the datasheet of DRS4, the chip samples the analog input every domino sampling period.  After finished sampling a waveform, the sampling process can be stoped by lowering the DWRITE while keeping DENABLE high. But the analog input is asychronous to the Domino CLK.  Then, how can we know when to  stop the domino sampling process to read out the sampled waveform? Of course, a trigger can be used. But from my present knowledge of DRS4, trigger can only be generated from analog input. Analog input is splited into two channels, one to DRS4 analog input, the other to FPGA as the trigger. However, splitting analog inputs increases the system design complexity, and may lower the total performace. So what is your suggestion?

    In our system, there are 8 analog inputs to a signal DRS4 chip, the outputs of DRS4 chip are connected to an 8-channel 14 bit ADC ( AD9252). It wold be kind of you to inform me about the most applicable approach for readout of DRS4 sampled wavefrom.

   Best regards.

   Sincerely,

   Jinhong Wang (wangjinh@mail.ustc.edu.cn)

Indeed you have to make an external trigger. The evaluation board uses the "transparent mode" of the DRS4 to "mirror" the input signal at the output, then puts a comparator there. The schematics of the evaluation board is in the manual. This does then not degrate the analog performance. You can of course also split the signal at the input, this will only add a minor additional load to the input signal, since the load of the DRS4 chips itself is much bigger than that of any comparator.

An alternative is to turn on the transparent mode and continuously digitize all 8 outputs with your AD9252. Then you make the trigger purely digital in your FPGA. You can put there a comparator, or even more complex logic like multiplicity etc. Note however that this causes some latency, since the ADC has a pipeline which is quite long, so you have to buffer the latency of your trigger in the analog window of the DRS4 sampling cells. Like if you run the DRS4 at 1 GSPS, you can accomodate 1024 ns of sampling depth, which is good for maybe 500 ns of trigger latency plus 500 ns of the waveform of interest.

Thank you. The transparent mode can be really helpful. Can you provide me in more details of the chip's transparent mode? I am still confused about the following aspects.

I notice that DRS4 samples the analog wave in the way "clear before write", and in the transparent mode, there will be certain delay before the trigger logic stops the sampling process. So,does it mean that the waveform recording process per Domino sampling cycle will not degrade the amplitude of the analog signal? Hence, for two idential analog inputs, one with a trigger latency of 500 ns and the other of 510 ns, the sampled waveform is identical, what differs is the starting number of the first active sampling cell, where the reading process considered to be started.   Is that right? Looking forward to your insight.

Best regrads.

Sincerely,

         Jinhong Wang (wangjinh@mail.ustc.edu.cn)

The amplitude of the analog signal is not degraded by the transparent mode, since the signal is buffered on the chip, and the output of this buffer is send off the chip. The waveform digitizing of course requires quite some current to charge up all capacitors, so there is  maximum current of ~1mA for 5 GSPS. If you only have a weak signal source, your bandwidth might be limited by that. On the evaluation board for example we use passive transformers to produce the differential input signal from a single-ended signal. Although the transformers are rated 1 GHz Bandwidth, we only achieve 200 MHz with the passive transformers. By using active high speed differential drivers, you can get about 700 MHz right now.

If you have two channels with 500 ns and 510 ns trigger latency, there is no difference in the "domino stop position" since there is only one domino circuit per chip which can be stopped. So the stop position is the same for all eight channels on a chip. 

 So you mean there is an analog buffer per channel? The analog signal is buffered there, before entering the sampling cells? Then, when will the buffer content be released and cleared? How shall I handle "Dwite" and "Denable" during a complete operation when an analog signal arrives in the transparent mode? I cannot find more information beyond the datasheet,  a detailed description of the transparent mode (and the analog buffer, if possible) will be really helpful for me.

Best,

Sincerely,

Jinhong Wang (wangjinh@mail.ustc.edu.cn)

  26   Mon Dec 21 16:52:08 2009 Stefan RittTrigger of DRS4

Jinhong Wang wrote:

Stefan Ritt wrote:

Jinhong Wang wrote:

Dear Mr. S. Ritt

     The following is my confusion about the trigger of DRS4. It mainly concertrates on the generation of trigger signal to stop DRS4 sampling process for readout of sampled waveform.

     As metioned in the datasheet of DRS4, the chip samples the analog input every domino sampling period.  After finished sampling a waveform, the sampling process can be stoped by lowering the DWRITE while keeping DENABLE high. But the analog input is asychronous to the Domino CLK.  Then, how can we know when to  stop the domino sampling process to read out the sampled waveform? Of course, a trigger can be used. But from my present knowledge of DRS4, trigger can only be generated from analog input. Analog input is splited into two channels, one to DRS4 analog input, the other to FPGA as the trigger. However, splitting analog inputs increases the system design complexity, and may lower the total performace. So what is your suggestion?

    In our system, there are 8 analog inputs to a signal DRS4 chip, the outputs of DRS4 chip are connected to an 8-channel 14 bit ADC ( AD9252). It wold be kind of you to inform me about the most applicable approach for readout of DRS4 sampled wavefrom.

   Best regards.

   Sincerely,

   Jinhong Wang (wangjinh@mail.ustc.edu.cn)

Indeed you have to make an external trigger. The evaluation board uses the "transparent mode" of the DRS4 to "mirror" the input signal at the output, then puts a comparator there. The schematics of the evaluation board is in the manual. This does then not degrate the analog performance. You can of course also split the signal at the input, this will only add a minor additional load to the input signal, since the load of the DRS4 chips itself is much bigger than that of any comparator.

An alternative is to turn on the transparent mode and continuously digitize all 8 outputs with your AD9252. Then you make the trigger purely digital in your FPGA. You can put there a comparator, or even more complex logic like multiplicity etc. Note however that this causes some latency, since the ADC has a pipeline which is quite long, so you have to buffer the latency of your trigger in the analog window of the DRS4 sampling cells. Like if you run the DRS4 at 1 GSPS, you can accomodate 1024 ns of sampling depth, which is good for maybe 500 ns of trigger latency plus 500 ns of the waveform of interest.

Thank you. The transparent mode can be really helpful. Can you provide me in more details of the chip's transparent mode? I am still confused about the following aspects.

I notice that DRS4 samples the analog wave in the way "clear before write", and in the transparent mode, there will be certain delay before the trigger logic stops the sampling process. So,does it mean that the waveform recording process per Domino sampling cycle will not degrade the amplitude of the analog signal? Hence, for two idential analog inputs, one with a trigger latency of 500 ns and the other of 510 ns, the sampled waveform is identical, what differs is the starting number of the first active sampling cell, where the reading process considered to be started.   Is that right? Looking forward to your insight.

Best regrads.

Sincerely,

         Jinhong Wang (wangjinh@mail.ustc.edu.cn)

The amplitude of the analog signal is not degraded by the transparent mode, since the signal is buffered on the chip, and the output of this buffer is send off the chip. The waveform digitizing of course requires quite some current to charge up all capacitors, so there is  maximum current of ~1mA for 5 GSPS. If you only have a weak signal source, your bandwidth might be limited by that. On the evaluation board for example we use passive transformers to produce the differential input signal from a single-ended signal. Although the transformers are rated 1 GHz Bandwidth, we only achieve 200 MHz with the passive transformers. By using active high speed differential drivers, you can get about 700 MHz right now.

If you have two channels with 500 ns and 510 ns trigger latency, there is no difference in the "domino stop position" since there is only one domino circuit per chip which can be stopped. So the stop position is the same for all eight channels on a chip. 

  25   Mon Dec 21 10:17:05 2009 Jinhong WangTrigger of DRS4

Stefan Ritt wrote:

Jinhong Wang wrote:

Dear Mr. S. Ritt

     The following is my confusion about the trigger of DRS4. It mainly concertrates on the generation of trigger signal to stop DRS4 sampling process for readout of sampled waveform.

     As metioned in the datasheet of DRS4, the chip samples the analog input every domino sampling period.  After finished sampling a waveform, the sampling process can be stoped by lowering the DWRITE while keeping DENABLE high. But the analog input is asychronous to the Domino CLK.  Then, how can we know when to  stop the domino sampling process to read out the sampled waveform? Of course, a trigger can be used. But from my present knowledge of DRS4, trigger can only be generated from analog input. Analog input is splited into two channels, one to DRS4 analog input, the other to FPGA as the trigger. However, splitting analog inputs increases the system design complexity, and may lower the total performace. So what is your suggestion?

    In our system, there are 8 analog inputs to a signal DRS4 chip, the outputs of DRS4 chip are connected to an 8-channel 14 bit ADC ( AD9252). It wold be kind of you to inform me about the most applicable approach for readout of DRS4 sampled wavefrom.

   Best regards.

   Sincerely,

   Jinhong Wang (wangjinh@mail.ustc.edu.cn)

Indeed you have to make an external trigger. The evaluation board uses the "transparent mode" of the DRS4 to "mirror" the input signal at the output, then puts a comparator there. The schematics of the evaluation board is in the manual. This does then not degrate the analog performance. You can of course also split the signal at the input, this will only add a minor additional load to the input signal, since the load of the DRS4 chips itself is much bigger than that of any comparator.

An alternative is to turn on the transparent mode and continuously digitize all 8 outputs with your AD9252. Then you make the trigger purely digital in your FPGA. You can put there a comparator, or even more complex logic like multiplicity etc. Note however that this causes some latency, since the ADC has a pipeline which is quite long, so you have to buffer the latency of your trigger in the analog window of the DRS4 sampling cells. Like if you run the DRS4 at 1 GSPS, you can accomodate 1024 ns of sampling depth, which is good for maybe 500 ns of trigger latency plus 500 ns of the waveform of interest.

Thank you. The transparent mode can be really helpful. Can you provide me in more details of the chip's transparent mode? I am still confused about the following aspects.

I notice that DRS4 samples the analog wave in the way "clear before write", and in the transparent mode, there will be certain delay before the trigger logic stops the sampling process. So,does it mean that the waveform recording process per Domino sampling cycle will not degrade the amplitude of the analog signal? Hence, for two idential analog inputs, one with a trigger latency of 500 ns and the other of 510 ns, the sampled waveform is identical, what differs is the starting number of the first active sampling cell, where the reading process considered to be started.   Is that right? Looking forward to your insight.

Best regrads.

Sincerely,

         Jinhong Wang (wangjinh@mail.ustc.edu.cn)

  24   Tue Dec 15 14:38:09 2009 Stefan RittTrigger of DRS4

Jinhong Wang wrote:

Dear Mr. S. Ritt

     The following is my confusion about the trigger of DRS4. It mainly concertrates on the generation of trigger signal to stop DRS4 sampling process for readout of sampled waveform.

     As metioned in the datasheet of DRS4, the chip samples the analog input every domino sampling period.  After finished sampling a waveform, the sampling process can be stoped by lowering the DWRITE while keeping DENABLE high. But the analog input is asychronous to the Domino CLK.  Then, how can we know when to  stop the domino sampling process to read out the sampled waveform? Of course, a trigger can be used. But from my present knowledge of DRS4, trigger can only be generated from analog input. Analog input is splited into two channels, one to DRS4 analog input, the other to FPGA as the trigger. However, splitting analog inputs increases the system design complexity, and may lower the total performace. So what is your suggestion?

    In our system, there are 8 analog inputs to a signal DRS4 chip, the outputs of DRS4 chip are connected to an 8-channel 14 bit ADC ( AD9252). It wold be kind of you to inform me about the most applicable approach for readout of DRS4 sampled wavefrom.

   Best regards.

   Sincerely,

   Jinhong Wang (wangjinh@mail.ustc.edu.cn)

Indeed you have to make an external trigger. The evaluation board uses the "transparent mode" of the DRS4 to "mirror" the input signal at the output, then puts a comparator there. The schematics of the evaluation board is in the manual. This does then not degrate the analog performance. You can of course also split the signal at the input, this will only add a minor additional load to the input signal, since the load of the DRS4 chips itself is much bigger than that of any comparator.

An alternative is to turn on the transparent mode and continuously digitize all 8 outputs with your AD9252. Then you make the trigger purely digital in your FPGA. You can put there a comparator, or even more complex logic like multiplicity etc. Note however that this causes some latency, since the ADC has a pipeline which is quite long, so you have to buffer the latency of your trigger in the analog window of the DRS4 sampling cells. Like if you run the DRS4 at 1 GSPS, you can accomodate 1024 ns of sampling depth, which is good for maybe 500 ns of trigger latency plus 500 ns of the waveform of interest.

  23   Mon Dec 14 10:14:16 2009 Jinhong WangTrigger of DRS4

Dear Mr. S. Ritt

     The following is my confusion about the trigger of DRS4. It mainly concertrates on the generation of trigger signal to stop DRS4 sampling process for readout of sampled waveform.

     As metioned in the datasheet of DRS4, the chip samples the analog input every domino sampling period.  After finished sampling a waveform, the sampling process can be stoped by lowering the DWRITE while keeping DENABLE high. But the analog input is asychronous to the Domino CLK.  Then, how can we know when to  stop the domino sampling process to read out the sampled waveform? Of course, a trigger can be used. But from my present knowledge of DRS4, trigger can only be generated from analog input. Analog input is splited into two channels, one to DRS4 analog input, the other to FPGA as the trigger. However, splitting analog inputs increases the system design complexity, and may lower the total performace. So what is your suggestion?

    In our system, there are 8 analog inputs to a signal DRS4 chip, the outputs of DRS4 chip are connected to an 8-channel 14 bit ADC ( AD9252). It wold be kind of you to inform me about the most applicable approach for readout of DRS4 sampled wavefrom.

   Best regards.

   Sincerely,

   Jinhong Wang (wangjinh@mail.ustc.edu.cn)

  22   Wed Nov 4 14:42:22 2009 Stefan Rittoutline dimension of DRS4

Jinhong Wang wrote:

QFN_package.jpg

                                                                                                            Fig.1        typical dimension of QFN package

Above is the typical dimension specification for QFN package. I cann't find the corresponding "T1" as in Fig.1 in the DRS4 documents, nor any of the tolerance of the dimensions, which are usually expressed in the form of  a range between a min. value and a max. value.

So will you specify the dimension of "T1" and "W1", and the dimension tolerance of them?

Thanks and best wishes!

                                                                               Jinhong Wang       University of Science and Technology of China

 

Please find attached the complete dimensions.

  21   Fri Oct 30 03:31:54 2009 Jinhong Wangoutline dimension of DRS4

QFN_package.jpg

                                                                                                            Fig.1        typical dimension of QFN package

Above is the typical dimension specification for QFN package. I cann't find the corresponding "T1" as in Fig.1 in the DRS4 documents, nor any of the tolerance of the dimensions, which are usually expressed in the form of  a range between a min. value and a max. value.

So will you specify the dimension of "T1" and "W1", and the dimension tolerance of them?

Thanks and best wishes!

                                                                               Jinhong Wang       University of Science and Technology of China

  20   Mon Oct 19 12:46:12 2009 Stefan Rittoutput common mode voltage of DRS4

Jinhong Wang wrote:
Does it mean that this buffer shifts a voltage of about 1.3V for the primary differential range? 

No. It shifts about ROFS-0.25V. So only if ROFS=1.55V, the shift will be 1.3V.

Jinhong Wang wrote:
Again for the differential range of -0.5V~0.5V, can the common mode voltage of the analog output at OUT+/OUT-  be chaned?

Just read the datasheet under "ANALOG OUTPUTS". I'm sorry if I did not describe this clearly, but the U+ voltage is fixed (only dependent on ROFS), and U- can be calculated using Uofs as written in the datasheet. 

Jinhong Wang wrote:
In the example presented in the datasheet, OUT+ is 0.8V~1.8V and OUT- is 1.8V~0.8V. So for an output swing of 2V p-p, can the common mode voltage be modified to the desired value? Supposed that the input ranges from -0.5V~0.5V.

OUT+ is 0.8V~1.8V, OUT- is 2*Uofs-OUT+. So you can only change the OUT- level, not the OUT+ level. 

  19   Mon Oct 19 11:26:29 2009 Jinhong Wangoutput common mode voltage of DRS4
Hello Mr. Stifan.Ritt
       In the DSR4 datasheet, it is mentioned that there is an additional buffer at each analog output, this buffer shifts the the differential range of -0.5V~0.5V to 0.8V~1.8V. Does it mean that this buffer shifts a voltage of about 1.3V for the primary differential range? 
       Again for the differential range of -0.5V~0.5V, can the common mode voltage of the analog output at OUT+/OUT-  be chaned? In the example presented in the datasheet, OUT+ is 0.8V~1.8V and OUT- is 1.8V~0.8V. So for an output swing of 2V p-p, can the common mode voltage be modified to the desired value? Supposed that the input ranges from -0.5V~0.5V.
                                                      
     Thank you!
                                             Jinhong Wang
  18   Mon Oct 19 09:13:00 2009 Stefan RittBIAS Pin of DRS4

Jinhong Wang wrote:

Dear Mr. Stefan Ritt.

         Thank u for your timely response on "DSR4 Full Readout Mode", I received it from Professor Qi An, who is my PhD supervisor.

        I am currently going through the DRS4 datasheet. Well, can you give some specification on the usage of "BIAS" pin of DRS4? It is just metioned in the datasheet as bias of internal buffer. What is the internal buffer exactly reffered to here? The MUXOUT buffer of channel 8 or else? Does it have some relationship to O_OFS? I mean, if the reference voltage to BIAS is changed, how will the output be influenced?

       Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

                                                                       Jinhong Wang

                                                                    Fast Electronics LAB. of University of Science and Technology of China.

"internal buffers" are all internal operational amplifiers in the DRS4 chip. Every OPAMP needs a bias (just look it up in any electronics textbook), which determines the linearity and the speed of the OPAMP. When designing DRS4, I was not sure if the required BIAS voltage changes over time, or between chips, so I made it available at a pin, which is a common technique in chip design. But it turns out now that this voltage is not very critical, so just keeping the pin open will work in most cases. 

  17   Mon Oct 19 09:06:43 2009 Jinhong WangBIAS Pin of DRS4

Dear Mr. Stefan Ritt.

         Thank u for your timely response on "DSR4 Full Readout Mode", I received it from Professor Qi An, who is my PhD supervisor.

        I am currently going through the DRS4 datasheet. Well, can you give some specification on the usage of "BIAS" pin of DRS4? It is just metioned in the datasheet as bias of internal buffer. What is the internal buffer exactly reffered to here? The MUXOUT buffer of channel 8 or else? Does it have some relationship to O_OFS? I mean, if the reference voltage to BIAS is changed, how will the output be influenced?

       Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

                                                                       Jinhong Wang

                                                                    Fast Electronics LAB. of University of Science and Technology of China.

  16   Fri Oct 16 10:16:10 2009 Stefan RittDSR4 Full Readout Mode

Jinhong Wang wrote:

Hello Mr. Stefan Ritt

          In DSR4 DATASHEET Rev.0.8 Page13, I noticed you metioned the samping should occur after 38 ns after the rising edge of SRCLK when the multiplexer is used. So what is suggested value(delay time between sampling and the rising edge of SRCLK) for the parallel mode,in which the multiplexer is not used?

          Best wishes!

                                                       Jinhong Wang

The clock-to-output delay is the same if one uses the multiplexer or not. I found however that in most cases the delay of 38 ns needs some fine tuning to get optimal performance. So I typically use a shifted clock generated by the FPGA clock manager with a programmable delay (+-5 ns for Xilinx) and optimize this in the running system.

  15   Fri Oct 16 09:51:03 2009 Jinhong WangDSR4 Full Readout Mode

Hello Mr. Stefan Ritt

          In DSR4 DATASHEET Rev.0.8 Page13, I noticed you metioned the samping should occur after 38 ns after the rising edge of SRCLK when the multiplexer is used. So what is suggested value(delay time between sampling and the rising edge of SRCLK) for the parallel mode,in which the multiplexer is not used?

          Best wishes!

                                                       Jinhong Wang

  14   Wed Oct 14 23:53:05 2009 Armin KolbDRS_exam using USB Evaluation Board with OS X

For the users using a Macintosh,

after several hours the Evaluation Board is working  on my Macintosh (intel).

1) install the development package with xcode, its on the OS X installation DVD

2) install the libusb binary from http://www.ellert.se/twain-sane/

3) modify the makefile  for compiling drs_exam (attached) afterwards it's running perfect!

 

best,

Armin

 

  13   Wed Oct 7 17:58:20 2009 Stefan RittVDD switch off speed

It turned out that the VDD switch off speed plays some important role. On our VME board, we have a linear regulator, then a 4.7 uF capacitor, then the DRS4 chip (DVDD and AVDD). When switching off the VME power, it takes quite some time to discharge the 4.7 uF capacitor, since the DRS4 chip goes into a high impedance mode if VDD < ~1V. This gives following VDD trace:

no_res.png 

Rising edge is power on, falling edge is power off. Note the horizontal time scale of 2 s/div. So to get below 0.3 V or so, it takes up to 30 seconds. If the power is switched back on when AVDD is above 0.3V, the DRS4 chip can get into a weird state, where probably many domino waves are started and the chip draws an enormous amount of current. Typically the linear regulator limits the current, so the 2.5V drops to ~1.5V, and the board is not working. If people are aware of this and always wait >30sec. before turning the power on again, this is fine, but people might forget.

So the solution is to put a resistor (typically 100 Ohm to 1 kOhm) parallel to the 4.7 uF capacitor in order to have some resistive current load of a few mA. The discharge then looks like this:

100ohm.png

Note the horizontal scale of 10ms/div. So after 30 ms AVDD is discharged and powering on the chip again does not do any harm. The same should be done to DVDD.

  12   Tue Oct 6 11:20:39 2009 Stefan RittVDD instability

It has turned out that the stability of the AVDD and DVDD power supplies for the DRS4 are very critical. On the evaluation board I use a REG1117-2.5, on our VME board I use a ADP3338-2.5 for the DVDD power supply. When the domino wave is started, the power consumption of the DRS4 chip jumps up by ~40 mA, which has to be compensated by the linear regulator. Following screen shot shows what happens:

vdd_no_cap.png 

The blue trace is the DWRITE signal indicating the sampling phase when high. The yellow is the SRCLK showing when the readout takes place. The pink is now the DVDD power. It can be clearly seen that there is a dip of ~50 mV when the domino wave starts, a positive dip when it stops and another smaller dip when the readout starts. This causes strange effects: If the trigger arrives during the first dip, the actual sampling takes place when the DVDD is ~50 mV smaller, which leads to a baseline shift of a sampled 0V DC input voltage of about the same amount (-50 mV).

The obvious improvement is to put a huge capacitor on the power supply, but that does not help much:

vdd_470uf.png

The dip gets a bit smaller, but it's still there. So a better solution would be to use a faster LDO regulator. Please take care of this if you plan a new design.

Furthermore, I believe that the chip internally has some "warmup" phase, where the die heats up a bit when the additional 40 mA are drawn. So a "good" solution is to wait some time after starting the domino wave until one allows for triggers. Tests showed that a few milliseconds are necessary to keep the baseline shifts below a few millivolts. This of course decreases the dead time of the system significantly, so one has to choose the proper balance between increase dead time and increased base line shift. On some applications where a baseline shift is not an issue, one could opt for the minimum dead time.

  11   Thu Jul 9 09:11:03 2009 Stefan RittCurrent problems with drs_exam.cpp

The current version of the DRS readout example program drs_exam.cpp has two problems:

  1. The sampling frequency cannot be changed, it will always stay in the region around 5 GSPS
  2. The waveform obtained by GetWave is rotated such that the first DRS cell corresponds to the first array bin

Both problems have been fixed and the fix will be contained in an upcoming software release.

  10   Tue Jul 7 16:39:57 2009 Stefan RittPower up problem and remedy

Maybe some of you have experienced that the DRS4 chip can get pretty hot after power up. After it's initialized the first time, the power consumption goes back to normal. I finally found the cause of this problem and have a remedy. Here is the new paragraph from the updated data sheet:

During power-up, care has to be taken that the DENABLE and DWRITE signals are low. If not, the domino wave can get started before the power supply voltages are stable, which brings the DRS4 chip into a state where it draws a considerable amount of current and heats up significantly. This can be problematic if the signals are directly generated by a FPGA, since most FPGAs have internal pull-up resistors which get activated during the configuration phase of the FPGA. In such a case, the DENABLE and DWRITE signals should be connected to GND with a pull down resistor. This resistor should be much smaller than the FPGA pull-up resistor in order to keep the signals close to GND during the FPGA configuration. A typical value is 4.7 kOhm.

The attached schematics shows the location of the two required resistors.

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