SP Devices' digitizers are developed for high-speed and high resolution. A typical example is the ADQ14, which is a 14-bits digitizer available as 4 channels 1 GSample/s or 2 channels at 2 GSample/s.(More about the digitizers from SP Devices can be found at www.spdevice.com.)
This discussion is focusing on developing White Rabbit compatibility for
the digitizers. This development consits of 2 parts;
1. controlling the digitizer and enabling the White Rabbit features
2. build a system around the digitizer - White Rabbit solution.
The first part is straight-forward. The digitizer has a clock reference input for the 10 MHz clock reference. This will get the phase accuracy needed. The digitizer also has a sync input for the pps signal to control the timestamp.
The second part, system build, is a more open question. We have identified 2 situations; multi-channel node and few channel node.
In the multi-channel mode, we assume a chassis with a large set of digitizers. For that we propose a WR-box that can provide timing reference to this array of digitizers. Then the digitizers operates as normal, but the timing is controlled from this WR-box.
In the single/few channels node, there are more possibilities, which mainly are related to data transfer infrastructure.
1. The digitizer is controlled by a local PC with an Ethernet
connection for data transfer.
2. The digitizer is controlled by a local PC which share the Ethernet
connection for data with the timing control fiber connection of WR.
3. The digitizer operate stand alone using the built in 10 GbE
connection for high performance data transfer and the WR uses a separate
1GbE fiber for timing control.
Jan-Erik Eklund - 11 February 2016