Overview

The “Open FPGA kit“ is based on the CAEN Digital Detector Emulator (DT4800) together with the DT1260, Open FPGA digitizer.

The kit allows to perform a series of lab experiments without using a radioactive source and a detector, by simulating the signals produced by the interaction of particles with the detecting unit. Moreover, it is possible to configure the FPGA of the board in order to perform the most suitable signal processing for each specific application.

What’s inside

The DT4800, called Micro Digital Detector Emulator, is the most compact and cost effective model of the Detector Emulator family and it is particularly suited for single channel emulation and educational purposes. The unit features one analog output, one digital input, and one digital output.
As a Pulser it can generate exponential decay signals with programmable Rise Time and Fall Time up to a rate of 1 Mcps. The rate can be fixed or it can follow a Poissonian distribution.

The DT1260 is a dual channel digitizer made for non-expert users who are approaching the Open FPGA programming. In fact the firmware can be designed by the user using the SCI-Compiler environment, a block-diagram-based programming interface consisting of a prebuilt set of functions (Oscilloscope, TDC, MCA, etc.). The input signals, delivered through LEMO connectors, are read by a 12-bit @ 65 MS/s ADC unit with Open FPGA.

Software

The CAEN DT4800 Digital Detector Emulator Software interface, is a simple GUI that allows the user to setup a signal in a very straightforward way. The Software Interface generates exponential shape analog output, with as many piled-up events as half of the DAC frequency. The user can set the analog output signal rate, the amplitude, the rise and fall time of the exponential shape, the white noise contribution as well as the Random walk noise.

Open FPGA Tools

SCI-Compiler is Windows based software designed to accelerate the firmware implementation for signal processing in scientific instrumentation. SCI-Compiler is an automatic code generator that, starting from a graphical block diagram, generates a VHDL peace of code that implements the required function. Moreover, SCI-Compiler is able to generate C libraries and drivers to be used in Windows, Linux and macOS for software implementation. SCI-Compiler uses a prebuilt library set containing macroblocks with complex function. Each macroblock could be imagined as a modular instrument (MCA, Oscilloscope, Digitizer, TDC) that the user could connect with each other.