CAEN PLU Library

Overview

CAEN PLU library (also referred to as PLULib) has been developed to support the V2495 and DT5495 CAEN programmable logic units.

This library specifically provides a set of functions to interface these boards through the direct USB and Ethernet communication interfaces, but also the VMEbus connection by using CAEN Bridges (V1718, V2718, V3718 and V4718), controllers (A2818, A3818), and A4818 adapter is supported.

The PLULib supports the following communication channels:

• PC → USB2 → V2495/DT5495
• PC → ETH → DT5495
• PC → ETH → V4718 → V2495
• PC → PCI/PCIe (A2818/A3818) → CONET → V2718 / V3718 / V4718 → VME → V2495
• PC → USB2 → V1718/V3718 → VME → V2495
• PC → USB3 → V4718 →VME →V2495
• PC → USB3 → A4818 → CONET →V2718/V3718/V4718 → VME → V2495

“CONET” (Chainable Optical NETwork) indicates the CAEN proprietary protocol for communication on Optical Link. The core functions of the CAEN PLU library manage the connection with the target board, as well as the write and read to registers, while dedicated functions handle multiple boards management by USB link, provide to initialize and program the gate-and-delay generators, permit to write and read the FLASH memory of the target board FPGAs for the firmware management, retrieve the board and status information.

     PLU Library for Windows                                                                                              PLU Library for Linux

 The CAEN PLULib package includes a simple test demo. The executable file, CAEN_PLULib_TEST.exe, is in the bin folder, while the test folder contains the source C files and the Visual Studio project. This is not intended as a readout software, as the user cannot do any operation on the target board, but the demo test permits to automatically check the library functions good working.