[Halld-tracking-hw] Preamps

Fernando J. Barbosa barbosa at jlab.org
Thu Jun 10 22:31:33 EDT 2010


Hi Curtis,

Sorry, I had a mistake in my previous email:

Old preamp - 1.5 mV/fC, 270 fC 1% DR
New Preamp (present CDC configuration) - 0.57 mV/fC, 380 fC 5% DR.

The old preamp saturated most of the time and an interposer was modified 
to decrease in half the input charge to the old preamp. That worked! 
GlueX-doc-1079 recommends that the new preamp should have a gain of 3 
lower than the old preamp to provide some headroom (compared to a gain 
of 2 lower).

The noise of the new preamp is much lower than the old preamp as a 
function of the input capacitance and the intrinsic S/N has improved. If 
we map 380 fC to 4095 channels on the fADC125, a dynamic range of 80 
would require a pedestal below channel 50. Noise pick-up should always 
be minimized by proper grounding, shielding and minimizing the 
connection lengths at the inputs, of course.

I think we have succeeded in meeting the CDC requirements regarding the 
ASIC.

Best regards,
Fernando




Curtis A. Meyer wrote:
> Hi Fernando
>
>   the point of lowering the gain was to increase the dynamic range so 
> we could accommodate
> a larger range of pulse heights (which was crucial for dE/dx). Based 
> on the noise that we were
> seeing, we carefully worked out that given the same noise and maximum 
> signal size,
> that a gain of 3 to 5 lower would allow us to do dE/dx except for the 
> extremely slow protons.
> If the maximum has actually decreased by a factor of two, then we have 
> effectively lost that
> in the dynamic range and  I think that we probably have a problem with 
> this configuration.
>
>   Curtis
>
>      
>
>
> On 6/10/10 8:24 PM, Fernando J. Barbosa wrote:
>> Hi Naomi,
>>
>> Now it makes sense. The original preamp had a gain of 1.5 mV/fC and 
>> the new one that you have is 0.57 mV/fC. So, a factor of 2.63 lower 
>> now. This seems to be confirmed on the first set of plots if you were 
>> to cut the "overflows" from the left plot (just by looking at the plot).
>>
>> The dynamic range on the old preamp was wider with 400 fC at the 1% 
>> level; the new preamp is at 380 fC @ 5% (for your configuration). The 
>> older preamp had a much wider DR with a smooth roll off before hard 
>> saturation; the new preamp has  narrower  DR before hard saturation. 
>> It is important to keep in mind that we want to operate in the linear 
>> region, perhaps even better than the 5% level. This is seen on the 
>> next sets of plots for the new preamp has a hard saturation at ~2100 
>> channels. The fADC125 will be optimized to have this mapped to the 
>> upper level of its 12-bit range.
>>
>> I cannot say much about the energy plots because of non-linearity and 
>> saturation on both old and new preamps. The detector gain is too high 
>> and I suggest that you take additional runs starting at 1750V.
>>
>> Thanks and best regards,
>> Fernando
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Naomi Jarvis wrote:
>>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I just wanted to correct something I wrote yesterday (which did not 
>>> make sense anyway).  From looking at the scope traces with the 55Fe 
>>> source I thought that the new preamp gain was less than that of the 
>>> old preamp.  After actually collecting data and extracting amplitude 
>>> histograms it turned out that the preamp output was in fact 
>>> saturating, although I could not see this on the scope.  I thought I 
>>> could distinguish between saturated and non-saturated traces, but 
>>> evidently this was not the case.   So I have added some 55Fe plots 
>>> to the wiki:
>>>
>>> http://www.jlab.org/Hall-D/software/wiki/index.php/Preamp_4:_Comparison_of_55Fe_data_with_original_preamp 
>>>
>>>
>>> These are again comparing the two preamps, and to be clear, the only 
>>> difference between the two sets of runs is that the preamps are 
>>> switched and the baseline on the shaper is set to  approx -130mV 
>>> (because the preamps have a different baseline).  Everything else is 
>>> the same, both sets of data were taken on the same day.
>>>
>>> Is there anything else you would like me to try with it tomorrow, or 
>>> leave counting over the weekend?
>>> Naomi.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Fernando J. Barbosa wrote:
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> It seems that Monday @ 10 is preferable to most.
>>>>
>>>> Gerard, I will discuss with you any issues related to the preamps 
>>>> and ASICs afterwards.
>>>>
>>>> In preparation for the meeting, I suggest reviewing GlueX docs 
>>>> 1070, 1079 and 1364. I will send an email with the agenda for the 
>>>> meeting by the end of the week.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks and best regards,
>>>> Fernando
>>>>
>>>> Curtis A. Meyer wrote:
>>>>> Monday at 10:00am would be great!   Curtis
>>>>> On 6/9/10 2:31 PM, Fernando J. Barbosa wrote:
>>>>>> Hi Curtis,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Would Monday @ 10  next week work for everyone?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Best regards,
>>>>>> Fernando
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Curtis A. Meyer wrote:
>>>>>>> Hi Fernando
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>   the next tracking meeting is not until June 23, so if we wait 
>>>>>>> until then to discuss this
>>>>>>> issue, we will certainly fail to meet your deadline of June 25. 
>>>>>>> It also takes several days
>>>>>>> of cosmic running to get a data point, so checking anything also 
>>>>>>> takes time. If there is any
>>>>>>> way that we could have a meeting next week, it would help speed 
>>>>>>> things along.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>   thanks - Curtis
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 6/9/10 12:55 PM, Fernando J. Barbosa wrote:
>>>>>>>> Hi Naomi,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I suggest we reserve part of the next tracking meeting to 
>>>>>>>> discuss these issues.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Let me also take the opportunity to emphasize that the CDC and 
>>>>>>>> the FDC groups must finalize their measurements so that the 
>>>>>>>> procurement of the ASICs is not impacted. This means that I 
>>>>>>>> would like to close this project by 25 June 2010.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Thanks and best regards,
>>>>>>>> Fernando
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Naomi Jarvis wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Good morning!
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I would like to talk about the new preamp but I don't think 
>>>>>>>>> there will be enough time in our tracking mtg this morning.
>>>>>>>>> The concerns are that the preamp output is topping out at 
>>>>>>>>> around 500 mV even with the cosmics, and the gain for cosmics 
>>>>>>>>> seems to have increased, whereas for Fe55 it was ~1/3 less.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I put one page on the wiki      
>>>>>>>>> http://www.jlab.org/Hall-D/software/wiki/index.php/CDC#Preamp4_.28GlueXdoc1364_Tbl_2_Row_2.29 
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> The recent cosmic runs there took a week each, and were with 
>>>>>>>>> the chamber flat, ie 90 degree cosmics.   I'll add more data 
>>>>>>>>> as it becomes available;  at present it is counting at 2kV.
>>>>>>>>> Can we set up a time to talk about this next week?   (The rest 
>>>>>>>>> of this week is out for us; I think the only times we cannot 
>>>>>>>>> do next week are 1pm Tues + the regular mtg on Wed).
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Naomi.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>
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>
>
> -- 
> Prof. Curtis A. Meyer		Department of Physics
> Phone:	(412) 268-2745		Carnegie Mellon University
> Fax:	(412) 681-0648		Pittsburgh PA 15213-3890 
> cmeyer at ernest.phys.cmu.edu	http://www.curtismeyer.com/      
>
>   
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