GDAQ - Generic Data Acquisition system

A general purpose data acquisition card has been developed to enable acquisition and real time processing of data from our current suite of X-ray detection systems. The card is designed to be reconfigurable for use in a large range of applications, either as a standalone unit or in multiple card applications. A diagram of the key components is shown below.

The first application of the card is as a combined dual time to digital converter and histograming memory for use with X-ray detectors with delay-line based readout.  

Three daughter card slots allow the front end inputs to be adaptable to each specific detector requirement. Currently we have two double-sided ADC cards, 12-bit 205msps (AD9430) and 14-bit 190msps (ADS5546). These daughter cards continuously sample the analogue signal, streaming digital data into the Altera EP2c70 FPGA. This device has 68,000 logic elements with 1.1mb RAM, 150 18*18 Bit multipliers, 4 phase locked loops and 622 user i/o pins. The FPGA has access to a local 128 MB DDR memory to allow real time data processing. External data access and control can be via the 64 bit PCI bus, USB or RS232. Another external bus allows custom connections between cards.

Status

An assembled prototype of this card is currently being tested. Altium designer 6 was used to layout the 12 layer PCB using 6/6thou design rules. Altera Quartus II SOPC builder with additional VHDL was used to produce the FPGA firmware.

For further information on this project contact Andrew Berry andy.berry@sync.monash.edu.au .