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EUROPEAN COMMISSIONRESEARCH DG HUMAN RESOURCESAND MOBILITY
ITN Progress Report
Project No: 211801
Project Acronym: ACEOLE
Project Full Name: Data Acquisition, Electronics, andOptoelectronics for LHC Experiments
ITN Progress Report
Period covered: from 01/10/2008 to 03/08/2010 Date of preparation: 09/07/2010
Period number: 2nd
Date of submission (SESAM):09/07/2010 16:09:58 CET
Project coordinator name:Mr. Robert Mclaren
Project coordinator organisation name:EUROPEAN ORGANIZATION FOR NUCLEARRESEARCH
Version: 1
ITN Progress Report
PROJECT PROGRESS REPORTGrant Agreement number: 211801
Project acronym: ACEOLE
Project title: Data Acquisition, Electronics, andOptoelectronics for LHC Experiments
Funding Scheme: FP7-MC-ITN
Period covered - start date: 01/10/2008
Period covered - end date: 03/08/2010
Project co-ordinator:
Organisation PIC: 999988133
Organisation legal name: EUROPEAN ORGANIZATION FORNUCLEAR RESEARCH
Person in charge of scientific aspects:
Title: Mr.
First name: Robert
Name: Mclaren
Tel: +41 22 767 49 07
Fax: +41 22 767 94 95
E-mail: [email protected]
Project website address: www.cern.ch/aceole
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OVERALL PROGRESS OF THE PROJECT:
Comments:
INTRODUCTION
This report covers deliverables and milestones foreseen during the first 22 months of ACEOLE (upto the Mid-Term Review in August 2010).
WORK PACKAGE 0
Recruitment was done in two batches in July 08 and March 09 by interview at CERN or by phone.CERN paid for travel of candidates in the first batch of interviews. This meant that we were able tostart ACEOLE on 1 October with 3 ESRs and 1 ER already at CERN.
As shown in the Contract Deliverables Update table, 15 Researchers (12 ESRs and 3 ERs) have beenrecruited with a good nationality spread and a reasonable gender balance (3 females, 12 males).CDPs have been written on time and a series of guidelines written to help plan work, training andexpenditure.
One ESR resigned for personal reasons and returned to his home country (where he found a job inindustry within 2 weeks). The position was advertised and a selection committee was held on 2.7.10at CERN. The new ESR will start on 1.8.10 for 26 months until the end of ACEOLE. Milestone M46has been delayed but we are confident it will be met.
Three ERs have already completed their contracts.
There are still two ER posts, 12 months each, to be filled. A selection board was held on 2 July 2010- the Project Officer has agreed (see below) to merging the two 12-month ER positions into a singleposition of 24 months.
All Fellows have been made aware of their rights and entitlements.
For details of the researchers' secondment to associated partners, please see Table 1 in attached file"Tables ACEOLE MTR report".
The planned management meetings - Kick Off, 6 months, 12 months and 18 months - all took place.
A website www.cern.ch/aceole was created before the project started; it contains full details of theprogress of the project.
In addition to deliverables outlined in Annex I, we have also developed activity logs which allowmonitoring of the level and type of training of the Fellows. There is a monthly meeting between theresearchers, the scientist in charge and the HR manager for Marie Curie projects to keep up to dateon progress. We also performed annual reviews for the Fellows which allow us to plan training of theResearchers tailored to the realisation of their long-term career aims, and this gave rise to specifictailor-made complementary training actions (see Table 2).
Spending of the Category D budget is under control with researchers taking full advantage of theopportunities afforded to them by the EC funding. At the time of drafting this report in early July2010 (43% of the project), about 50% of the Category E allocation was spent - we consider this to bean acceptable spending profile and expect spending to slow down in the second half of the project.
WORK PACKAGES 1-5
For details deliverables in the period up to the MTR of Work Packages 1-5, please see Table 3 inattached file "Tables ACEOLE MTR report".
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Individual reports from each WP Leader are included in the attached document "MTR_all_WPLs".These details include: a summary of work, a summary of on-the-job training, the status of milestonesand deliverables, secondment and training.
In addition to training required by the deliverables, each researcher has followed several courses,details of which are in their individual reports (see file "Reports all researchers").
WORK PACKAGE 6
Training given by scientists in the period up to the MTR is reported in Table 4 in the file "TablesACEOLE MTR report".
Dissemination
In the first 22 months, the Researchers produced 68 reports and made 84 presentations. Theyparticipated in major conferences including CHEP, TWEPP, IEEE Real Time and in manycollaboration meetings. They also produced several papers which will appear in peer-reviewedjournals. Comprehensive lists of their reports and presentations are on the website. As part of theiron-the-job Project Management training, Researchers have also convened two sessions of themeetings.
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CONTRACT DELIVERABLES UPDATEM - Months
RESR - Researcher
FAC B - Fixed amount contract B (%)
RECRUITMENT
Participants
Early Stage Researchers (ESR) Experienced Researchers (ER) Visiting scientists (VS <10) Visiting scientists (VS >10)
Foreseen Implemented Difference Foreseen Implemented Difference Foreseen Implemented Difference Foreseen Implemented Difference
M RESR FACB M RESR FAC
B M RESR FACB M RESR FAC
B M RESR FACB M RESR FAC
B M RESR FACB M RESR FAC
B M RESR FACB M RESR FAC
B M RESR FACB M RESR FAC
B
CERN 432 12 0 405 12 0 27 0 0 60 5 0 33 3 0 27 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 15 11 0 0 0 0 15 11 0
Total 432 12 0 405 12 0 27 0 0 60 5 0 33 3 0 27 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 15 11 0 0 0 0 15 11 0
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Comments:
1. One ESR resigned for personal reasons and returned to his home country. The position wasadvertised and a selection committee was held on 2.7.10 at CERN. The new ESR will start on 1.8.10for 26 months until the end of ACEOLE. The total number of researchers in the periodic report willtherefore be 13 instead of 12.
2. Following interviews for the two planned ER positions on WP5, a request was submitted to theProject Officer to merge the two 12-month positions into a single position of 24 months and shekindly agreed by e-mail on 8 July 2010. The total number of researchers in the periodic report willtherefore be 4 instead of 5.
3. The e-mail correspondence with the Project Officer on each of the above points is attached (seeRecruitment adjustment July 2010).
4. The Visiting Scientists will contribute to the researchers' training in years 3 and 4 of the project.
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INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES / EVENTS OPEN TO EXTERNAL RESEARCHERS
EventNumber
Participant hosting theevent Type of Event
Month whenthe event took
place
Start date ofthe event
End date of theevent
Total number ofresearchers outside thenetwork attending the
event
Total number ofresearcher days forresearchers from
outside the networkattending the event
Website of the event
1 CERN Marie Curie projectssession at TWEPP-2009
12 21/09/2009 25/09/2009 5 39 http://twepp09.lal.in2p3.fr/
2 CERN Marie Curie projectssession at TWEPP-2010
24
3 CERN DAQ session atCHEP-2010
25
4 CERN Marie Curie projectssession at TWEPP-2011
36
5 CERN DAQ session atCHEP-2012
43
6 CERN ACEOLE project wrap-upworkshop
48
7 CERN Marie Curie projectssession at IEEE NSS-MIC
2011
38
8 CERN DAQ workshop organizedat CERN -> event tookplace in Ankara, Turkey
17 31/01/2010 07/02/2010 9 72http://isotdaq.web.cern.ch/isotdaq/isotdaq/2010.html
9 CERN Kick-off meeting 1 02/10/2008 02/10/2008 http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=39638
10 CERN 6-month progress meetingat CERN
7 02/04/2009 02/04/2009 http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=52216
11 CERN 12-month progressmeeting at CERN
13 01/10/2009 01/10/2009 http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=67052
12 CERN DAQ session atCHEP-2009, Prague
6 21/03/2009 27/03/2009 80 105 http://www.particle.cz/conferences/chep2009/
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Total number of researchers outside the network attending the event Total number of researcher days for researchers from outside the networkattending the event
94 216
Planned number of researcher days for researchers from outside the network attending the event: 400
Remaining number of researcher days for researchers from outside the network attending the event: 184
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Comments:
Note on event 8 : the workshop had 40 students and it was an excellent opportunity for 6 of theACEOLE recruited researchers to take part in the workshop organization and to act as teachersduring the event (specific training was organized to help them in this role). We plan to repeat theevent in 2011 in Rome with even more recruited researchers taking part as teachers.
Notes on the figures for the conferences/events above:
- CHEP : conference records show that a total of 567 researchers from outside the network attended.ACEOLE sponsored 13 students who attended for 5 days; the ACEOLE-sponsored session attracted80 researchers from outside the network who each attended half a day. This gives (13 x 5) + (80 x0.5) = 105 external participant days.
- TWEPP : workshop records show that a total of 240 researchers from outside the network attended.ACEOLE sponsored 5 students who attended for 5 days; the ACEOLE-sponsored session attracted37 researchers from outside the network who each attended for 3 hours. This gives (5 x 5) + (37 x3/8) = 39 external participant days.
- Please note that participation in the CHEP 2012 conference was brought forward to 2009 due to theprompt recruitment of the researchers early in the project.
CONCLUSION
The project is going well on all fronts. We realise that there are challenges as mentioned above - wehave particularly appreciated the advice on these issues from the Project Officers.
We look forward to a fruitful discussion during the mid-term review at CERN.
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PITN-GA-2008-211801 ACEOLE Mid-Term Review report – tables
Table 1 – WP0 – Secondment
W.P. Associated Partner Maximum Total 1 PANalytical 3 1.5 VTT 6 0.75
2 INESC Porto 11 7 3 Krakow 9 0 4 UCL 9 2.5 INESC 7 1.5 SCK.CEN 9 0 VTT (Oulu) 6 2
5 Force 10 6 0
Table 2 – WP0 – Tailor-made complementary training actions
W.P. Action Description Comments 0 Course Making presentations Completed 0 Course Leaders in science Completed
Table 3 – WP1-5
W.P. Deliverable Description Comments 1 D11 Report: Bump Bonding Completed W11 Organise workshop on pixels 9 Medipix workshops held
2 TC21 Training course PLL course at EPFL D21 Sign-off spec Completed W21 TWEPP 2009 Completed
3 TC31 Training courses 4 courses completed W31 Participation TWEPP 2009 Paper (Poster)
M31 Tape out DC-DC converter Completed 4 D411 Report: PONS in HEP Completed June 2009 D412 Conference report on PON protocol Completed D421 Report: Lasers measure & models TWEPP Paper (Poster) D422 Report on Networks TWEPP Paper (Poster) D431 Report on testing and methodology Expected October 2010 D441 Report on EMI and thermal
impedance testing Completed
M41 PON prototype implementation TWEPP Paper (Oral) M42 PON demonstrator Completed M43 Irradiation testing Completed M45 Ready to characterize Completed W41 Optoelectronics working group Held at TWEPP
5 TC51 Advanced Training courses Langs, databases,storage .. I51 Internship with Force 10 Foreseen 2010 W51 DAQ workshop ISOTDAQ 2010 Ankara
Table 4 – WP6 – Training hours delivered by external scientists
W.P. Training topic (including on-the-job training) Annex I Result
1 Principles and techniques of x-ray materials 10 0
1 High-density array interconnect technology 3 0
2 Analogue & mixed-signal ASICs 6 12
2+4.1 Optical networks. Mux, transmission and switching technologies 10 24
3 Front-end electronics for silicon tracking detectors at the SLHC 10 2
4.1 Core & access optical networks 10 40
4.2 Optical sources 6 40
4.3 Reliability and radiation-tolerance qualification of optoelectronics 8 0
4.4 Photonic packaging and integration. 8 0
5 Control and monitoring of large and widely distributed systems 15 0
ACEOLE Mid Term Review - Summary of Work Package 1 Michael Campbell
This work package covers 2 main activities: the development of low cost bump bonding and tiling of
large area pixel detectors.
The first activity is nearing completion. Richard Plackett has contributed to this by developing a fully
automated wafer probing system which allows the identification and classification of chips for bump
bonding. In the past this procedure was manual, cumbersome and time consuming and therefore
prone to human error. Richards’s system allows the probing of wafers to be done automatically
within a few hours as compared with a few days before. Timo Tick has been working together with a
more experienced CERN Fellow on the development and evaluation of novel low cost bump bonding
processes. In spite of the limited resources available for this task a number of significant cost saving
techniques have been identified. Test wafers have been designed and processed by Timo at the
ACEOLE partner, VTT in Espoo, Finland. Those wafers have been used to test the new processes and
first results are available. Status reports have been presented both at CERN and at conferences. The
work is still on-going and a full report is expected towards the end of 2010.
The tiling of large areas is still a work in progress. A full report on Through Silicon Via processing has
been received from VTT, Espoo. However, because of the extreme technical challenges involved, this
technology is unlikely to be ready for application to real large area tiling within the timescale of
ACEOLE. In the meantime Timo Tick will focus on the development of a large area photon sensitive
MCP-based tube using the Timepix readout chips. This project requires addressing many of the same
challenges needed for large area sensor tiling but will not require the use of TSV processing for the
first prototypes.
Status of Milestones and deliverables
Development of pixel detectors Status
D11 Report on low cost bump bonding solutions and
design of test components R Public 10 Complete
M11 Low cost bumping test structure design O Restricted 16 Complete
D12 Report on the full evaluation programme R Public 18 In
preparation
W1n Organize a workshop on pixel detectors (Medipix
collaboration-related) n.a. 12, 24,36 On -going
D13 Report on tiling solutions suitable for HEP and
materials analysis R Public 12 Complete
M12 Design of various tiling solutions O Restricted 24
D14 Documentation and conference paper on tiling
solutions attempted and conclusions R Public 36
On the job training
Richard Plackett has fully integrated himself in the Medipix team at CERN. He started work by
learning to test chips on wafer and was able to develop a fully automated wafer testing and
classification system under the guidance of an experienced CERN physicist. He has also sent a
significant amount of his time preparing and organizing test beam activities. Timo Tick has been
mentored throughout his stay by a more experienced CERN Fellow. Together they have designed
test wafers and ceramic carriers requiring Timo to learn sophisticated CAE tools and to get hands-on
experience with Si wafer processing equipment and techniques. They have also processed test
wafers at VTT and flip chip bonded test assemblies. All on this required a high level of commitment
by Timo to learn these new skills.
Secondment
Richard Plackett spent 6 weeks during October and November 2008 learning about the materials
analysis application at PANalytical, one of our ACEOLE partners, in the Netherlands.
Timo Tick has spent several periods of 1-2 weeks at the ACEOLE partner, VTT Espoo processing test
wafers and carrying out flip chip assembly. During each of these stays he has been mentored by
CERN Fellow, Sami Vähänen and has been given a lot of support and coaching from local VTT experts
Training by visiting scientists
No formal training has been provided by scientists visiting from the partner companies. However, we
have received a number of short visits from scientists from both PANalytical and VTT in the
framework of our work on supporting the materials analysis application, development of low cost
bump bonding techniques and TSV processing. These have usually taken the form of intensive formal
and informal discussions on details of each topic which can be considered to constitute on-the-job
training.
Other developments
During his ACEOLE Fellowship Richard Plackett identified the potential of the Timepix chip for
tracking at High Energy Physics experiments. He led an activity which involved designing,
implementing and running test beams at CERN to verify his idea. The results of these tests have
convinced the LHCb Collaboration that this technology is most appropriate for the upgrade of the
LHCb vertex detector. Richard was subsequently employed by the University of Glasgow to develop
this work further.
WP2 This work package progress report refers to the work of the ACEOLE fellow
Pedro Cardoso.
Summary of work
Pedro Cardoso started his contract on the 1st of June 2009. The first few months of
work were almost exclusively dedicated to training in order for Pedro to acquire the
necessary skills to do ASIC design. As practical training, Pedro has carried out
preliminary design of LC oscillators and has written a report about a course he
attended at EPFL. This has allowed him to prepare a short tutorial on the design of low
phase-noise oscillators which he has presented at CERN during a section meeting.
Additionally Pedro has written the specifications for a crystal base PLL which will be
his major work activity (ASIC design) for the coming year.
The 7th of September 2009, Pedro started his secondment at Porto’s University (UP) to
do the academic part of his doctoral program and to do the initial work towards the
development of a Voltage Controlled Crystal Oscillator (VCXO).
Pedro restarted working at CERN on the 6th April 2010 and since then has been
designing a Phase Locked Loop that will include the VCXO previously developed at UP.
Training (during secondment 7/9/2009 to 1/4/2010)
As part of his PhD studies Pedro has attended and successfully passed examinations on
the following topics:
Seminar topics: The course consisted in several seminars presented by
specialists in different fields and seminars prepared and presented by the
students on several topics. Besides the seminar the student’s assignments
consisted in writing a detailed report and a “paper” format document reviewing
the topic discussed. In particular, Pedro has prepared and presented a seminar
on “DRAM Testing at Qimonda”.
Microelectronic and Microelectromechanical technologies: besides following the
lectures and successfully attending two exams, four seminars were presented
and the following circuits designed: 80 MHz VCXO and Clamped-Beam Resonator
based Oscillator.
Test and Design for Testability. For this topic Pedro has prepared three
seminars: “IEEE Standard for Boundary-Scan Testing of Advanced Digital
networks”, “Analogue faults and fault modelling” and “Analogue BIST -
functional”. The studies contained also a practical assignment where Pedro has
designed a “Jitter Measurement Circuit”. Two exams were successfully
completed.
Digital Communications Systems: The course consisted on the theory of digital
communication systems and there were three assignments to be completed were
a theoretical model of a digital link was built and a simulation/mathematical
model was implemented in MATLAB. A seminar was presented on “Software
Defined Radio” and an exam was successfully taken on the topics studied.
Short course on "Nanoscale CMOS analogue design from devices to system", at
ESSCIRC 2009 Conference, in Athens, September.
R&D work:
Development of a mathematical and behavioural model for a Phase-Locked Loop
PLL), to allow the optimization of the circuit’s parameters for the PLL being
developed.
Design of a Jitter measurement circuit in a commercial 130 nm CMOS
technology with a 17 ps resolution. This circuit will be used as part of the self-
test features that will be integrated in the PLL being developed.
Design of an Oscillator based on a Micro-Electro-Mechanical resonator to judge
if such a device could be a viable alternative to quartz based oscillator. This line
of development was abandoned due to the difficulty of integrating the device on
the IC processes used in the project.
A preliminary design of a VCXO was made. The work is now ongoing in order to
include added functionalities. These will be: automatic gain control, digitally
programmed oscillation amplitude and transconductance.
Detailed reports on the work mentioned above can be found in the following links:
https://espace.cern.ch/proj-gbt10/Reports/Forms/AllItems.aspx
https://espace.cern.ch/proj-gbt10/Presentations/Forms/AllItems.aspx
Status of milestones and deliverables foreseen in Annex I
Del.
no.
Titles of the Research Training Themes
and
description of deliverables and milestones
Nature1
Dissemination
level
Delivery
date2
Status
TC21 Complete initial training courses (ASIC design,
CAD tools, theory of phase-locked loops etc) n.a. 6
Complete
D21 Sign-off specification document for ASIC (IP
block) R Public 6
Complete
W2n Organize microelectronics user group @
TWEPP workshop n.a. 12,24,36
-
M21 Tape out prototype design ready for
submission O Restricted 18
-
1 The nature of the deliverable is coded as follows: R = Report, P = Prototype, D =
Demonstrator, O = Other 2 For research themes 1-5 the delivery dates are measured in months from the start of
individual ESR contracts.
D22
Completion of testing and irradiation of
prototype ASIC with conference report or
journal publication
P + R Public 27
-
M22 Tape out final ASIC design ready for
submission O Restricted 29
-
D23
Complete testing/irradiation of final ASIC and
system-level integration test. Final conference
report and/or journal publication
D + R Public 36
-
On-the-job training
As mentioned above, most of the Pedro’s time has been spent on training. Pedro has
started by building a strong theoretical background on the operation and design of low
phase-noise oscillators. He has made an extensive literature search on LC and XTAL
oscillators becoming acquainted with the state of the art. Pedro has also spent a
considerable amount of time learning how to use the CADENCE ASIC design tools and
the IBM 130 nm design kit. He has explored the full cycle of ASIC design starting at
schematic capture, passing through layout and finishing at back annotated circuit
simulations. To put is new knowledge to practice Pedro has successfully designed a
single-ended and a differential LC oscillator.
Training by Visiting Scientists
On the 5th and 6th of February Dr. José Machado da Silva presented a 6 hour course at
CERN on “Test and Design for Testability of Analogue and Mixed-Signal Circuits”. The
lecture notes can be found at:
http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=78641
On the 25th and 26th Dr. João Canas Ferreira presented a 6 hour course on “Run-Time
Reconfiguration of Hardware”. The lecture notes can be found at:
http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=78644
Both courses targeted the ACEOLE fellows but were also opened to a wider CERN
audience of engineers and physicists.
WP3
Summary of work
WP3 On-detector Power Management Schemes.
Work focus on the development of new, efficient power distribution schemes
allowing for major reduction of amount of material inside the particle detectors.
Two main approaches are considered. By using a DC-DC conversion technique
one can brings higher voltages and minimize the currents inside the tracker
(SCT) volume. The other approach explores the serial powering scheme, where
number of detector modules is supply in serial by one power cable. The objective
of the work is the development of radiation-tolerant ASIC building blocks for
upgraded front end electronics for ATLAS SCT. The recently developed chip
implemented in CMOS 250nm process, ABCN, contains several power
management blocks allowing to test various serial power distribution schemes
and a variety of DC-DC converters.
Current design work carried out by Michal Bochenek focus on development of
new power management building blocks to be implemented in next generation of
front end chips realized in 130 or 90 nm processes. In comparison with presently
used 250nm process the future technologies work with much lower voltage
supply (change from 2.5V to 1.2V supply). This result in demand for novel
functional blocks to be implemented directly on the front end chip, namely step
up and step down switched capacitor DC-DC converters.
An optimisation and design of an integrated DC-DC step-up charge pump and
step-down converter implemented in 130 nm technology has been presented on
last TWEPP workshop. Next step was the particular implementation of the DC-
DC converters in 130nm IBM CMOS 8RF process which gave some issues to be
solved related the fact that the technology is not optimized to build power
devices.
The test chip containing both prototypes of step-up and step-down DC-DC
converters has been submitted in IBM 130nm process in May 2010.
Short summary of on-the-job training
Development of the mentioned building blocks requires deep knowledge in the field
of analogue electronics as well as skills in CAE tools. In parallel to the design work
profiting in improving of Michal competences he took variety of the professional
courses listed below.
• Advanced Engineering Course OPERATIONAL AMPLIFIERS: Theory &
Design (10.11.2008 - 13.11.2008, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The
Netherlands)
• Adaptive Power Management Course (8.02.2009, ISSCC, San Francisco,
CA, United States)
• Low-voltage and Mixed Signal CMOS Circuit Design Course (12.02.2009,
ISSCC, San Francisco, CA, United States)
• EIROforum School of Instrumentation (ESI) (11.05.2009 - 15.05.2009,
CERN, Geneva, Switzerland)
• Low-Power, Low Voltage Analog IC Design (22.06.2009 - 26.06.2009,
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland)
He has participated in SLHC-PP Annual Meeting (25.02.2009 - 26.02.2009, CERN,
Geneva, Switzerland) and Second Common ATLAS CMS Electronics Workshop for
SLHC (3.03 - 4.03.2009, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland)
His design work concerning development of switched capacitor DC-DC converters
has been presented by him on Topical Workshop on Electronics for Particle
Physics (TWEPP09) (21.09.2009 – 25.09.2009, Paris, France) (paper: “An
integrated DC-DC step-up charge pump and step-down converter in 130 nm
technology”).
Recent simulation results and final design implementation have been presented on
31.03.2010 ATLAS–CMS Power Working Group (oral presentation “Design of on-chip
switched capacitor converters).
Cadence Open Access courses:
Introduction to Analogue IC Design: Layout and post layout verification, RAL,
United Kingdom, 25.11.2009 - 27.11.2009
Introduction to Analogue IC Design: Schematic entry and simulation, RAL,
United Kingdom, 26.01.2010 - 28.01.2010
Non-technical courses:
Managing Teams, 10.11.2009 - 12.11.2009
Project Engineering, 13.01.2010 - 14.01.2010
Marie Curie Fellows at CERN for general and poster presentations,
17,23,24.11.2009
Status of milestones and deliverables foreseen in Annex I (including training) with
a list of any deviations and reasons
TC31 (month 6), Training courses in microelectronics design methods, CAD
tools, design of circuits for regulators, etc (completed)
• Advanced Engineering Course OPERATIONAL AMPLIFIERS: Theory &
Design (10.11.2008 - 13.11.2008, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The
Netherlands)
• Adaptive Power Management Course (8.02.2009, ISSCC, San Francisco,
CA, United States)
• Low-voltage and Mixed Signal CMOS Circuit Design Course (12.02.2009,
ISSCC, San Francisco, CA, United States)
• Low-Power, Low Voltage Analog IC Design (22.06.2009 - 26.06.2009,
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland)
W31 Participation in TWEPP workshop (completed)
Paper “An integrated DC-DC step-up charge pump and step-down converter in 130
nm technology” presented on Topical Workshop on Electronics for Particle Physics
(TWEPP09) (21.09.2009 – 25.09.2009, Paris, France)
M31 tape out of DC-DC step up and step-down converters (instead the
distributed shunt devices)
Secondment
The secondment is planned at AGH, University of Science and Technology,
Krakow; Faculty of Physics and Applied Computer Science.
Preferred duration of the secondment is 3 months during 36 months of the ERS
fellow contract.
Plan of activities anticipated for the secondment:
- Participation in preliminary tests of full ATLAS SCT readout chips
integrated with the power distribution system designed by the ESR
during his contract at CERN,
- Preparation of the final report on milestones and deliverables for the
European Union Committee,
- Passing final obligatory exams before a defence of a doctoral thesis.
- Advancing knowledge, professional skills and experience by working with
specialists in of the Nuclear Electronics and Radiation Detection Group.
Training by VSs (past and future)
A visit of senior scientist from AGH University of Science and Technology, Krakow is
to be organised.
ACOLE mid-term status report
WP4: Optical Transmission Systems for SLHC Experiments
Researchers: Spyridon Papadopoulos (ESR, WP 4.1), Ioannis Papakonstantinou (ER, WP 4.1), Sergio Silva (ER, WP 4.2),
Sarah Seif el Nasr (ESR, WP 4.3), Hans Versmissen (ESR, WP 4.4).
Associated Partners: Izzat Darwazeh UCL (UK, WP4.1), Henrique Salgado INESC (P, WP4.2), Marco Van Ueffelen and Wouter de
Cock SCK.CEN (BE, WP4.3), Pentti Karioja VTT (FI, WP4.4).
CERN Supervisor and Workpackage Leader: Jan Troska and Francois Vasey
Work summary: Work package 4 is broken down into four activities, each carried out in partnership with one associated partner.
WP 4.1 Architecture Studies, deals with possible architectures for future timing and control distribution
networks. Spyridon Papadopoulos and Ioannis Papakonstantinou are the two researchers involved in this activity.
They first acquired, with the help of University College London, the necessary theoretical background to
understand the concept of Passive Optical Networks (PON). They subsequently investigated the applicability of
this concept to High Energy Physics experiments and eventually proposed a simplified protocol for the
distribution and reception of synchronous and fixed latency signals to and from multiple destinations. This
proposal was translated into a real demonstrator based on commercial FPGA and PON Transceiver components
[2,4]. Following a presentation to the electronics coordinators of the 4 LHC experiments in Dec 2009, an
updated and more realistic version of the demonstrator was developed and presented at the IEEE real time
conference in May 2010 [5]. In parallel to this prototype development, an advanced PON concept for readout,
timing and control of experiments was studied and simulated by Spyridon Papadopoulos, relying on dense
wavelength multiplexing of multiple channels on one single fibre. The possibility to develop this work into a
PhD thesis is currently being investigated.
Ioannis Papakonstantinou left the ACEOLE project after his 6 months assignment, but will remain at CERN until
31st Dec 2010.
WP 4.2 Characterization of Semiconductor Lasers, consists in measuring semiconductor laser candidates for use
in future high energy physics experiments, and extracting a set of characteristic parameters to be included in
models developed to simulate the device at the system level. Sergio da Silva is the researcher in charge of this
activity. Together with INESC Porto, he developed the methodology, derived an appropriate laser model,
performed the necessary characterization tests and extracted the relevant parameters for a selected set of devices.
The resulting model was implemented in a high level description language and was subsequently validated by
comparing its prediction with real experimental data. It was then used to validate the design of a prototype
carrier board that will form the basis for a future transceiver package [1,3]. Sergio Silva has now left the
ACEOLE project after his 12 months assignment.
WP 4.3 Radiation Resistance consists in validating candidate components for use in future High Energy Physics
experiments. Sarah Seif el Nasr is in charge of this activity, in partnership with SCK.CEN (Molles). She
participated in August 09 in a high fluence test of active components, characterized devices, analyzed test data
and developed the associated analysis tools. After completing the offline analysis of the high fluence test results,
she embarked on the preparation of a single event upset radiation test due to take place at the Paul Scherrer
Institute (Zürich, Switzerland) in July 2010. She defined the test jig, programmed the acquisition and control
system and contributed to the preparation of the test setup in the lab. The test is now imminent and a year of dry
preparation work is about to bear fruit.
WP 4.4 Optical Packaging, is about customization of commercial transceiver packages to adapt them to the
needs of high energy physics, in particular making them compact and lightweight while maintaining their
optimal thermal and EMI properties. Hans Versmissen is the researcher involved in this activity, together with
VTT Oulu. After a literature search phase, he got familiar with the setups and methods in place at CERN to
characterize the functionality of transceiver modules. He successfully reproduced the results from previous work,
and performed first comparative studies of commercial and customized modules. From Oct 15 to Dec 14 2009,
Hans Versmissen relocated to VTT Oulu and focused on modelling, with the help of the VTT experts, heat
transfers in transceiver modules and electro-magnetic interference (EMI) between transmitter and receiver
elements. The EMI simulations were eventually compared with direct measurements taken at the University of
Oulu. Hans Versmissen unexpectedly left the ACEOLE project in March 2010 and a new recruitment is
currently ongoing.
Training: During the first two project years, the researchers participated to several conferences, short courses and tutorials:
Optical Fiber Communication OFC (I. Papakonstantinou, S. Silva), International Conference on Transparent
Optical Networks ICTON (S. Silva), RADiation and its Effect on Components and Systems RADECS (S. Seif el
Nasr), Topical Workshop on Electronics for Particle Physics TWEPP (I. Papakonstantinou, S. Silva), European
Conference on Optical Communication ECOC (S. Papadopoulos). They attended numerous CERN seminars and
lectures and learned programming languages such as Labview (S. Silva, S. Seif el Nasr) or Autocad (S. Seif el
Nasr). Most importantly, they all received extensive on-the-job training in the form of close technical
supervision in the laboratory, critical reviews of written reports and constructive discussions after oral
presentations. They also got a unique opportunity to interact with a multinational team of technicians, physicists
and engineers working at the forefront of technology at CERN or on secondment (S.Papakonstantinou, S. Silva
and H. Versmissen).
Status of Milestones and Deliverables: The following milestones and deliverables were met:
D411 Report on extendibility of PON concept to HEP
o PASSIVE OPTICAL NETWORKS IN HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS EXPERIMENTS, Internal
report by I. Papakonstantinou, June 2009.
D412 Conference report on demonstration of PON protocol for HEP application
o PASSIVE OPTICAL NETWORKS FOR TIMING-TRIGGER AND CONTROL
APPLICATIONS IN HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS EXPERIMENTS, Oral presentation by I.
Papakonstantinou, IEEE RT10 May 2010 [5]
D421 Report on laser electrical impedance measurements and models
o LASERS ELECTRICAL IMPEDANCE MEASUREMENTS AND MODELS, Internal report
by S. Silva, Apr 2009, some material used for TWEPP-09 submission [2].
D422 Report on proposed matching networks, recommendations to designers and experimental
results
o MATCHING NETWORKS AND RECOMMENDATIONS TO DESIGNERS, Internal report
by S. Silva, Aug 2009, some material used for TWEPP-09 submission [2].
D441 Report on environmental, EMI and thermal impedance testing
o SIMULATION OF THE ELECTRO‐MAGNETIC AND THERMAL BEHAVIOUR OF AN
OPTICAL TRANSCEIVER MODULE, Internal report by H. Versmissen, Jan 2010.
o EMI QUALIFICATION OF A COMMERCIAL OPTICAL TRANSCEIVER MODULE,
Internal report by H. Versmissen, Jan 2010.
M 41 PON implementation in soft and hardware
o PASSIVE OPTICAL NETWORKS IN PARTICLE PHYSICS EXPERIMENTS, Oral
presentation by I. Papakonstantinou, TWEPP Sep 2009 [4].
M 42 PON demonstrator with Versatile link components
o PASSIVE OPTICAL NETWORKS FOR TIMING-TRIGGER AND CONTROL
APPLICATIONS IN HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS EXPERIMENTS, Oral presentation by I.
Papakonstantinou, IEEE RT10 May 2010 [5]
o Due to a shift in project direction, the demonstrator was not built with Versatile link
components, but with commercial evaluation platforms
M 43 Ready for irradiation testing
o Test at PSI in the week commencing July 12 2010.
M45 Ready to characterize
o VTRX PROTOTYPE LOG, Internal report by H. Versmissen, Mar 2010.
W4n Optoelectronics working group @ TWEPP workshop
o TWEPP WORKSHOP, 24 Sep 2009, Paris. http://indico.cern.ch/event/twepp09.
The following deliverable is delayed:
D431 Report on analysis of high fluence test data and proposed methodology
o Abstract submitted to TWEPP-10, paper due in October 2010.
o Due to a shift in project orientation, this paper will not be presented by Sarah who will
however remain a co-author.
Secondment: All researchers visited their associated partner at least once.
Three researchers went on secondment during the first two project years:
Sergio Silva visited INESC on 2-19 Dec 2008 and on 2-19 Mar 2009
Spyridon Papadopoulos visited UCL on 26 Jan – 20 Mar 2009 and on 5 – 19 May 2010.
Hans Versmissen visited VTT on 15Oct – 14 Dec 2009
Visiting Scientists: Over the past two years, visiting scientists from UCL and INESC spent a total of approximately 10 days
supervising researchers at CERN.
Moreover, on 15-16 June 2009. Dr. John Mitchell from UCL was invited to give a general seminar on “The
where, why and how of optical access”, followed by a specialized tutorial on “Under the bonnet of EPON,
GPON and NG-PON”.
On 8-9 Feb 2010, Prof Henrique Salgado from INESC was invited to give a seminar on “Optical sources,
photodetectors and device characterization”, followed by a specialized tutorial on “Extraction and optimization
of intrinsic semiconductor laser parameters”.
Publications: [1] Silva, S. et al, “VCSEL Laser Characterization and Modelling for Future Optical Transceiver at the Super
Large Hadron Collider”, Proceedings of the 11th
International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks
(ICTON09), June 2009.
[2] Papadopoulos, S. et al, “Passive Optical Networks for Particle Physics Applications”, presented at the
London Communications Symposium (LCS09), August 2009.
[3] Silva, S. et al, “Characterization of Semiconductor Lasers for Radiation Hard High Speed Transceivers”,
Proceedings of the Topical Workshop on Electronics for Particle Physics (TWEPP09), September 2009.
[4] Papakonstantinou, I. et al, “Passive Optical Networks in Particle Physics Experiments”, Proceedings of the
Topical Workshop on Electronics for Particle Physics (TWEPP09), September 2009.
[5] Papakonstantinou, I. et al, “Passive Optical Networks for Timing-Trigger and Control Applications in High
Energy Physics Experiments”, Proceedings of the IEEE Real Time Conference (RT10), May 2010.
[6] Papakonstantinou, I. et al, “A Passive Optical Network with Latency Monitoring Capability for the
Distribution of Timing-Trigger and Control Signals in High Energy Physics Experiments”, Paper submitted to
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science.
WP5 mid-term activity report WP5 has currently 6 fellows working in the 4 LHC experiments. They are (in alphabetical order of the experiment names) Adriana Telesca (ALICE), Luca Magnoni (ATLAS), Dan Octavian Savu (ATLAS), Sebastian Bukowiec,(CMS) Yi Ling Hwong (CMS), Jean-Christophe Garnier (LHCb). All students are deeply involved in the start-up and operation of these huge devices of unprecedented complexity. It is very satisfactory to see that after a short time of 1 to 1 and a half years, each of them fills a key position in their respective teams. In the following a brief overview of their activities is given. Adriana Telesca Adriana started to work in ALICE in November 08. The first part of her work was the investigation of the ALICE storage system performance, both using a benchmarking software and using the ALICE DAQ software DATE. Testing different parameters which can impact its performance she found an optimal RAID configuration which exhibited the best combination of performance and reliability. In the second part of her work she integrated the monitoring of Fiber channel switches, Ethernet router and disk arrays in the existing Lemon monitoring system of the ALICE experiment devices, using the SNMP protocol. Metrics such as temperature, ports throughput, memory utilization, etc are displayed in the Lemon system and alarms can now be raised. During her first year she attended the following industry training courses and conferences:
1. Stornext File system training, Munich 13-15/01/2009 2. Qlogic Fibre Channel specialist training, Wokingham, UK 17-19/02/2009 3. General and Professional English Course (27 February - end June 2009) , 2
hours/week every Friday 12h-14h 4. Advanced Stornext File system training, Munich 10-11/03/2009 5. IEEE RT09 NPSS Conference, Beijing 10-15/05/2009, where she gave a plenary
talk. 6. CERN School of Computing 2009, Goettingen, Germany, 17-18/08/2009
Currently there are no plans for secondments. Luca Magnoni Luca started to work in ATLAS in June 09. The main goal of his work is to study, design and implement a system able to gather and process the huge amount of information coming from the ATLAS TDAQ system in order to understand the overall system health and possibly to react in case of incorrect behavior and errors. He started by studying the ATLAS TDAQ system architecture. Then he went on to investigate technologies, in particular machine learning techniques to build a system able to understand itself the normal and un-normal condition. This expert sytstem sports a modern web-interface, “dash-board”, and is currently in production use in the ATLAS TDAQ. He is also designing and developing a first software prototype that focuses on message
processing. The idea is to provide a quite general system able to work on different but simple use case. Initially consider only “messages” sent by TDAQ components, without relying on run time status information and gather information both from run time message system and from the message archive. Luca attended the following training events and courses
1. ATLAS TDAQ training course at CERN. 2. Self training on machine learning and pattern recognition techniques on books
bought on training budget. 3. Training on the week of Advanced C++ lectures organized by CERN in July 4. Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) course on "Pattern
Classification and Machine Learning" Currently there are no plans for secondments. Dan Octavian Savu Dan is working in ATLAS network team since 11 months. His work comprises the following tasks: improving the scalability and redundancy of the network monitoring servers infrastructure before the LHC startup; development and deployment of a fast SNMP polling service (as a more reliable alternative to Spectrum polling); improvement over the actual traffic 2D user interface and development of a new one before the LHC startup in November design and development for a central database to be used by all of the network monitoring software packages and analysis. He is also working on the design and development of an Expert System to monitor in real time all the activity in the Atlas TDAQ from a networking point of view. Dan’s tools are now part of the regular operation of the ATLAS experiment. Dan attended the following courses and conferences:
1. Spectrum 9 (4 days training. Commercial software for network monitoring. The main monitoring tool for the ATLAS TDAQ network)
2. Force 10 Devices & Configuration (5 days training using Force 10 equipments. Force 10 Specialist certification obtained at the end of the course.)
3. CHEP09 in Prague 4. ATLAS TDAQ Week oral presentation, “Update on Network Monitoring, October
2009. 5. ATLAS TDAQ Week oral presentation, “Intergrated System for ATLAS TDAQ
Network Monitoring”, May 2010. 6. Paper accepted for CHEP 2010 in Taipei
Dan will do a secondment with the associated partner Force10 networks in 2010, the details are currently being worked as Force10 has went through a serious restructuring after having been merged with another network firm and has now a new management. Sebastian Bukowiec
Sebastian started his work in May 2009. He is working on the ELogBook project, a collaborative tool, which aims to provide an environment where people working on the CMS experiment can share information and report the various events or problems
occurring in CMS experiment in a very convenient and efficient way. The new, database oriented version was deployed in March this year in CMS online service. He is developing new functionalities but is also doing maintenance and bug-fixing in this important production system. He attended (is already enrolled for) the following courses / schools
1. CERN School of Computing in Gottingen (Germany), where I successfully passed the final examination.
2. Making Presentations 3. JAVA 2 Enterprise Edition - Part 1: Web Applications, JAVA - Level 2, 4. General and Professional French course
His work on the logbook for CMS has been accepted as a paper presented at the RealTime 2010 conference in Lisbon, which gives the possibility for a peer-reviewed publication in IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science.
Currently there are no plans for secondments.
Yi Ling Hwong
Ling’s main task is the development of an analysis tool for the Finite State Machine (FSM) system of the Detector Control System (DCS) of the CMS experiment. This requires thorough analysis of the current, large, system and provide an optimization for its operation. The goal is a homogenous system. Centralized access to the FSM developed by the different sub-detector groups is done using an ORACLE database. She also had the opportunity to establish collaboration with a team from the department of Mathematics and Computer Science of the Technical University of Eindhoven (TUE) who is developing a toolset called mCRL2 for modeling, validation, verification and analysis of large distributed systems. A work meeting was held at CERN in June 2009 where the head of the team and his team member were present and we successfully modeled the FSM for the RACK system of the CMS DCS and carried out a series of analysis through means of simulation, 3D visualization and formula checking. Since then she managed to model the RPC FSM system with the mCRL2 language and a series of analysis and simulation has been done. Due to the extensiveness of the FSM codes that are needed to be translated into the mCRL2 language, the need for the development of an automated translation tool (a compiler) arised which has been successfully implemented. This work has been shown in a workshop (FMICS 2010). The tool is now used to analyze production control procedures from the central CMS configuration database and the results are very encouraging. She attended the following courses/conferences
1. International Conference on Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP) : 21st – 27th March 2009
2. IEEE NPSS Real Time Conference (RT2009): 10th – 15th May 2009 3. University of Eindhoven (TUE) training in the mCRL2 toolset (3rd – 7th August
2009). 4. ICALEPCS 2009, in Kobe Japan, where she presented a paper on her work (to
appear in the proceedings) .
Jean-Christophe Garnier
Jean-Christophe started his contract right at the beginning of ACEOLE in October 2008. His first task was to implement a software injector which emulates the detector dataflow through the LHCb DAQ network. This tool is used for testing both the computing farm and the offline procedures and systems. He is also in charge of the storage cluster project for the data acquisition, which is essential for the writing of LHCb’s raw data. As an extension of his injector project started he supervised a student working on a hardware implementation of his software injector, an R&D project which will be continued in the course of the LHCb upgrade plans. He participates in the LHCb Online system administration and in the teaching activities for the CERN summerstudents as tutor in the DAQ lab. Jean-Christophe is now one of the few key-experts of the LHCb DAQ and is frequently organizing operations on the system involving several administrators and hundreds of machines. His main emphasis is currently on high-speed file-access and network studies for the LHCb DAQ upgrade. He participated in the following courses and conferences
1. CHEP 2009 (oral presentation + paper appeared in peer-reviewed Journal of Instrumentation (JINST) )
2. IEEE Real Time 2009 conference. (Poster presentation and a peer-reviewed paper appeared in Trans. Nucl. Sci (an IEEE journal)
3. Speed up workshop 2009, focusing on the use of parallel processing, and more particularly through the use of GPUs..
4. TWEPP 2009, together with his student to present a poster on the above-mentioned hardware-injector project
5. He is attending a German course, for (about) 9 months now 6. He participated in the Force10 network traininig course and finished with a
certificate His papers to RealTime 2010, TWEPP 2010 and CHEP2010 have been accepted. Some of them will appear in peer-reviewed journals. The internship is currently being organized with the associated partner (c.f. Dan Savu). Jean-Christophe is and has been supervising several students working on software and electronics projects. Progress in deliverables as described in Annex 1 Excellent progress has been made on deliverable D51 (Optimisation of existing DAQ and Online systems) as has been shown in the above work descriptions. Several reports have been prepared, both as conference papers and internal notes. Papers in peer-reviewed journals have been published by some of the ESRs. Work on deliverable D52 (Preparation for SLHC DAQs) has started and has already resulted in a paper accepted for presentation at the CHEP 2010 conference in Taipei. More will follow in the course of this year and 2011. DAQ teaching ACEOLE has supported the CHEP09 conference in Prague, which is the most important computing conference in high energy and nuclear physics. ACEOLE students have
participated in particular in the Online track sponsored by ACEOLE and several promising students from outside the network and originating from less advantaged countries got the opportunity to participate in this exciting meeting of the leading researchers in scientific computing. Joel Goergen, the former Chief Scientist of our Associated Partner Force10 Networks gave an outstanding seminar on issues of advanced high-speed design at CERN, which had great attendance and interest in the entire CERN electronics community and beyond that. Mr. Goergen has left Force10 in the meantime but keeps good contact to the network even in his new position as Senior Fellow at Cisco. The researchers and the visiting scientist (see below) are in the core team of the ISOTDAQ (http://cern.ch/isotdaq) school, where several of the researchers have organized lab-courses and others have been key contributors to the organization of the school in 2010 held in Ankara and the next one to be held in 2011 in Rome. ACEOLE supports the CHEP10 conference similarly to CHEP09 – again there will be support for young students outside the network from less advantaged countries to participate in this world-class conference. Training by visiting scientist In order to maximize the impact Prof. Gaetano Maron will teach a course on Advanced Data Acquisition Topics at the ISOTDAQ school 2011 in Rome in Februray 2011, where the WP5 ESRs will again be involved as co-organizers and tutors. In addition Prof. Maron will be at CERN to give seminars for a smaller circle of students and ESRs in the course of 2010.
ACEOLE 24 month report
Adriana Telesca
1 Short summary of work
During the first year of my ACEOLE Marie Curie contract my work has beenmainly focused on an investigation of the ALICE storage system performance.I conducted an analysis of the performance of the storage system used in theALICE experiment by studying the impact of different configuration parameterson the system throughput. The aim of this analysis has been to determine thestorage configuration which gives the best system performance. In particular,the influence of file and block size on the writing and reading rates has beentaken into consideration considering the relative performance of a clustered filesystem and a regular journaled file system based on disk arrays in a FiberChannel storage area network (SAN) .
My work on the ALICE storage architecture has continued with the im-plementation of a monitoring system of the storage devices, disk arrays andfiber switches, integrated in the already used LEMON system and based oncommunication between devices using the SNMP standard.
During the second year on my ACEOLE Marie Curie contract I have beenworking on the Data Quality Monitoring software of the ALICE experiment. Mywork has been focused on the development of a monitoring agent specialized inthe processing of general data acquisition information in time. I made modifica-tions to the framework in order to profit from the multicore architecture of dataquality monitoring nodes by implementing a multithread based software. Othertasks include release procedures, support to the detectors team and continuousdevelopment.
2 Trainings
The range of courses that I attended up to now is very broad.Technical trainings include:
• StorNext file system training, Munich, Germany, January 2009
• Qlogic Fibre Channel specialist training, London, UK, February 2009
• Advanced StorNext file system training, Munich, Germany, March 2009
• CERN School of Computing, Gttingen, Germany, August 2009
The first three trainings are related to storage devices technology. In particular,the first and the third are focused on the illustration of the main and advancedfeatures of the StorNext file system which is a file system generally used in aStorage Area Network. The third item in the list is related to the configuration
1
and administration of Fibre Channel switches. At the completion of the course,I received the certification in ”Qlogic Fibre Channel Specialist” after an assess-ment exam.The CERN school of computing is a series of lectures of two weeks followed byan exam which focused on topics that vary from physics to computer science.Furthermore, I attended the following non-technical trainings:
• General and professional English course, CERN, February 2009
• ”Fundamentals of senior management”, course B713, Open University,London, UK, November 2009
The first item of the list has been a course of 2 months structured in one lessonof 2 hours every week in which English grammar was revised and discussionsin the group were organized to improve the level of oral English oral commu-nication. ”Fundamentals of senior management” is a course of one year aboutbusiness management, human resources and marketing. It is part of the wholecourse ”Master of Business Administration (MBA)” with the Open Universityof London.
3 Dissemination
This section contains all the activities I have been doing concerning papers,presentations and teaching.
• ”The ALICE storage system performance”, ACEOLE six month meeting,April 2009, Presentation
• ”The ALICE storage system performance”, IEEE RT 2009 NPSS confer-ence, Beijing, China, May 2009, Presentation
• The second AMORE DAQ agent, ALICE DAQ Meeting, ALICE week,CERN, October 2009, Presentation
• ”Full deployment of the ’ALICE’ data storage system at CERN: perfor-mance tests and system monitoring”, SNW Europe 2009, Frankfurt, Ger-many, October 2009, Presentation
• AMORE current status, ALICE DAQ Meeting, ALICE week, CERN,March 2010, Presentation
• ”The ALICE Data quality monitoring system”, IEEE RT 2010 NPSS Con-ference, Lisbon, Presentation
• ”The ALICE storage system performance”, IEEE RT09 NPSS, conferencerecord (no peer review), Paper
• ”The ALICE Data quality monitoring system”, IEEE RT 2010, conferencerecord (no peer review), Paper
• ”ISOTDAQ school 2010”, Ankara, Turkey, February 2010, Teaching ac-tivity
2
4 Impact
The Marie Curie fellowship program has had a strong impact on my career andpersonal development for several reasons.
Technical trainings such as the ones focused on storage technologies helpedme in deepening my knowledge in the field and being more efficient in the taskI have been assigned to at the beginning of my fellowship. The certification in”Qlogic Fibre Channel Specialist” will be very valuable for a potential futurejob in the field.The CERN School of Computing has been a very important experience fromdifferent points of view. First of all, it gave me some basis about particle physicsand completed some aspects of information technology which I didn’t know.Furthermore, it gave me the possibility to establish professional relationshipswith the other students and teachers.
The course in senior management is being a very nice experience for me. Itis giving me the opportunity to explore a new field and to share informationwith students of the same course through the use of forums, mails and tutorials.Moreover, it will surely be a valuable experience for a future job focused morein the management than in the technical work.
Presentations with my group of work, within the experiment and with a big-ger audience helped in increasing my self esteem and being more used to publicspeaking. The teaching activity during the ISOTDAQ school 2010 representsan experience that taught me a lot in terms of approach to the students anddifficulty in teaching difficult concepts.
3
Savu Dan Octavian ACEOLE/ WP5 / DAQ ATLAS Experiment My name is Dan Octavian Savu and I joined the ACEOLE program in November 2008, as a network researcher for the ATLAS TDAQ Networking Team. Since then, a successful combination of training sessions, work experience and constructive feedback greatly improved both my technical and complementary skills. The training program was structured to address my researcher needs, as it follows:
On-the-job training, including both theoretical aspects and hands on experience about ATLAS network, software packages or network monitoring procedures;
Formal technical training in Spectrum 9 (the main commercial software used for ATLAS TDAQ network monitoring) and Force10 Network Devices & Configuration (Force10 Specialist certification obtained after an exam at the end of the course);
Complementary training in “Learning French” (level 2 out of 5), “Making Presentations” and “Leaders in science - learning from experience” course;
Attending Computing in High Energy Physics 2009 conference presentations;
A secondment with the associated partner, Force 10, is scheduled for March 2011. With the main goal of extending and improving the network monitoring infrastructure, my technical activity was focused, up to now, on the following deliverables:
Improve network server’s hardware redundancy. A proposal was made and approved, equipments bought and implementation done before the LHC start-up;
Development of a network statistics gathering application to address all the reliability and scalability issues that we faced with our commercial solution. This application is now in production as the main source for network monitoring data;
Development of an integrated interface for displaying network statistics, environmental conditions, processor parameters and data taking characteristics, sharing the same look and feel between sections. The application, called Net-IS, is now in the shifter training procedure and of real use in the ATLAS Control Room and for TDAQ experts;
Creating an expert system to automatically monitor the network activity in real time. This is currently work in progress and some internal milestones were already overcome, such as unifying network messages, events and alarms or building a central networking knowledge database.
The activity results were exposed in some oral presentations such as “Update on Network Monitoring”, during ATLAS TDAQ Week (October 2009) , and “Integrated System for Network Monitoring”, during ATLAS TDAQ Week (May 2010). Also a paper on “Performance Monitoring of ATLAS TDAQ Network” was submitted to CHEP 2010 conference, for an oral presentation. The International School on Trigger and Data Acquisition (ISOTDAQ 2010) was a good opportunity to be involved in the organisational committee, setting-up 2 laboratories and be an instructor for students during hands-on sessions. So far the research work paid off and saved a lot of team effort in further addressing issues with the commercial software. Not only that the solution is better but is ready to monitor a network even many times bigger, as it will be the case after the ATLAS TDAQ Upgrade or with Super LHC. Net-IS, the second research activity, is the first attempt to integrate statistics from 7 distinct systems and to have one stop visualization over the TDAQ system. Started as a
networking tool it is now used by any TDAQ expert or shifter when checking status or investigating a system problem. Although the solution is specific to CERN, most of the modules can be used for monitoring any network with rigid demands of precision and scalability, exceeding normal industry standards. The ISOTDAQ 2010 School was a good opportunity to meet students and present to them what we realized so far, at the same time improving my personal communicational skills. Last, but not least, mixed training, an open, competitive environment and the opportunity to use the knowledge and experience for finding and implementing engineering solutions, had a big impact on my career considering that these are the first years after university studies completion.
Ioannis Papakonstantinou
END OF FELLOWSHIP REPORT
Name: Ioannis Papakonstantinou
10/06/2010
1. Job Description:
Experienced researcher on Passive Optical Networks for High Energy Particle
Physics
2. Training:
I attended the Optical Fiber Communications (OFC) conference in March 2009
which is the most important conference in its field. There, I attended a number
of talks on Passive Optical Networks and made contacts with companies
exhibiting relevant products. Some of the concepts that I heard during the
conference served as the basis for our implemented PON at CERN and to define
Spyridon Papadopoulos’ PhD project.
I attended the “Writing successful FP7 proposals” seminar in May 2009. I will
use the notes from this seminar to submit a proposal to a UK research council in
the near future.
In addition, I attended a number of invited technical talks and seminars within
CERN.
3. Dissemination:
- Introduction on Passive Optical Networks, presentation to PH-ESE-OPTO
weekly meeting, 02/04/2009.
- Transmission of 850nm over Single Mode fibers, presentation to PH-ESE-
OPTO weekly meeting, 26/05/2009.
- Passive Networks in High Energy Physics, to be presented at the Topical
Workshop on Electronics for Particle Physics (TWEPP), September 2009.
- Intermodal Dispersion Mitigation in Standard Single Mode Fibers at 850nm
with Fiber Mode Filters, to be submitted to IEEE Photonics Technology
Letters.
4. Management:
I co-supervised a PhD student, Spyridon Papadopoulos, in his first year of his
PhD. I helped to define his PhD project, guided him through optoelectronic
measurements and advised him on his literature review and how to proceed in his
research in the future.
5. Secondment
Due to the limited time of my fellowship I only paid short visits to our academic
partner, University College London in the UK to discuss about the technical
details of the project and how to efficiently supervise Spyridon Papadopoulos
with Prof. Izzat Darwazeh.
6. Technical Work
Please see the 6month report which summarizes all the work during my
fellowship
7. Career Development plan:
a. Did you meet your own goals while you were in ACEOLE
I have met most of my goals when in ACEOLE namely to submit at least
one paper to a leading photonic journal and to attend a major conference
in the fiber optic communication area.
b. Did your time in ACEOLE go in the direction of your longer-term goals
My publications, experience acquired by supervising a PhD student,
technical experience and contacts established at CERN most definitely
will help me in my future career.
8. Summary
a. Contributions to myself
I have always been intending to pursue a career in academia. As
mentioned before my publications during my time at CERN, the
experience from supervising a PhD student and the contacts I made at
CERN will all help me achieve my personal aspirations.
b. Contributions to CERN
I have contributed towards two technical projects during my time at
CERN. My work on Passive Optical Networks might serve as the basis for
the timing-trigger-control system in the super-large hadron collider if it
is adopted. There is already interest in my work on 850nm transmission
through single mode fiber by groups working on pixel detectors.
c. Contribution to EC
If I succeed in my application to start my own research group then I will
have fulfilled one major goal of ACEOLE which is to prepare researchers to
lead their field in the future.
d. Improvements to ACEOLE
I believe that fellows should be encouraged to interact with each other
more frequently either by formal, e.g. 6month ACEOLE meeting, or
informal means, e.g. trips, lunches etc. I think the size of the ACEOLE
project in terms of people involved, brings unique opportunities to the
fellows to network and to establish contacts with each other that can
help them in their near and longer term careers.
9. Activity Log
Please see my activity log in my personal file on ACEOLE
10. References
A summary of my paper to TWEPP can be found at:
http://indico.cern.ch/contributionDisplay.py?contribId=108&confId=49682
The slides of my presentation on PONs can be found at :
http://indico.cern.ch/contributionDisplay.py?contribId=15&confId=52216
The slides of my presentation on 850nm transmission over single mode fibers can be
found at :
http://indico.cern.ch/contributionDisplay.py?contribId=0&confId=62984
All documents I have produced can be found in my personal file on ACEOLE
11. Life after ACEOLE
I got an extension to my contract to work as a CERN fellow in the PH-ESE
department for a further year. During this period, I continue my work on the
PON concept. The results of my work up until now were presented in a major
IEEE conference and can be found in the proceedings of the 17th IEEE Real
Time Conference (RTC), Lisbon, May 24-28, 2010. A journal paper will also be
submitted to the IEEE transactions on nuclear science journal is under
preparation by the 15th of June.
In addition, I have been working on a pixel detector related project to replace
the 1310nm lasers with 850nm VCSELs. A paper based on this work has been
submitted to the IEEE Photonics Technology Letters entitled Modal Dispersion
Mitigation in Standard Single Mode Fibers at 850 nm with Fiber Mode Filters.
(Authors: Ioannis Papakonstantinou, Spyridon Papadopoulos, Csaba Soos, Jan
Troska, Francois Vasey, and Paschalis Vichoudis) and is now in the second round
of revisions.
Finally, I am involved in organizing the Enthusiasm for Engineering program to
extend the current teacher’s program at CERN to include engineering and IT. I
am currently organizing the modules to be taught and will present the concept to
an audience of teachers from around the world who will visit CERN in July. This
project has helped me improve my communication and networking skills and has
provided me with the opportunity to be involved in project management and
administration, areas which I had not had any prior experience.
Jean-Christophe Garnier Mid-term reportTraining:I am a computing and modelling engineer, curious about everything, and coming to CERNwas a good opportunity to learn more about particle physics and to work with recenttechnologies. I learned a lot about detector and accelerator physics and engineering, whichare inherent background technologies of DAQ engineering. I particularly appreciate informalmeetings (around a coffee) with the LHCb operation coordinator and other important people.Participating in DAQ projects increased my networking, system and software skills. I attendeda course from our partner Force10 about managing their devices, which was useful innetworking tasks on the LHCb DAQ.Since I am working at CERN in a relatively open environment, it pointed out a requirementin computing security skills that I try to address attending courses and reading severalinformation sources (books, magazines) which cover both technical aspects and managementaspects.As one of my current projects is to study the upgrade of the DAQ system, we investigateemerging technologies which could be on top of the performance in a few years, likemany-cores GPUs, alternative network devices, etc. This leads to workshops and a lot ofdocumentation reading.I continuously think about my career, and building an interesting profile for companiesgoes through all these practical and technical experiences, but as well by showing some"complementary" but primordial skills in management and communication. During my jobinvestigation I noticed that German would be a good skill to increase the value of my Resumeand to have more job opportunities. I am currently learning German and CERN is a very goodenvironment for language learning, as I practice it here at CERN with friends and teammatesin parallel to the courses.
Technical:My work is distributed in several points of the LHCb data-acquisition system. My first projectwas to implement a key-piece which would allow the LHCb collaboration to perform FullExperiment System Tests (FEST). It consisted of designing and implementing a dataflowgenerator, so the DAQ and basically the full downstream LHCb system can be exercised:triggers, monitoring, data transfer, etc. This project was very interesting because it allowedme to learn a lot about the LHCb system and about the roles of people in the team. Theimplementation made me meeting responsible people for each sub-detector in order to learnabout their system. The project integration in the DAQ system made me working with themain people from the DAQ systems and the operation coordinators, learning among otherabout control systems, stream writing, etc. This project is stable and does not require a lotof maintenance operation.I have currently three research activities. The first one is another implementation of the FESTdataflow generator, which would meet requirements for the upgraded LHCb DAQ. I carry outthis project in collaboration with students from my school. This involves new technologies like10 GbE and Advanced TCA. It is therefore very interesting for students and for me to workon this project.The second project is the development of a dedicated file system and a set of applications inorder to manipulate raw physics data. I optimised and put in production the writing part soit was used successfully for FEST and LHC data-taking activities, and I am currently focusingon the reading part, which would be used in a particular project which consists in using thetrigger farm as computing resources for data analysis during LHC shutdown periods.The last project is the study of a next generation event-builder architecture. In order to dothis we set up a test system with powerful servers to be the main actors of the DAQ, and weuse various connectivity technologies and protocols, like Infiniband and 10 GbE.As a collaboration with Force10 Networks, I should carry out a 3 month R&D project.
Dissemination:I participated in LHCb software weeks in order to present the FEST project to thecollaboration. This project was also presented in two conferences, CHEP09 and IEEE RealTime 09. In addition to these conference proceedings, a paper will be published in theTransaction for Nuclear Sciences journal. The upgrade of this project was presented inTWEPP09 and a paper was published in the proceedings as well. 2010 is once again theopportunity to present papers in conferences. I presented preliminary results of my work onthe LHCb custom file system in the IEEE Real Time 2010 conference, and I will try to presentmore advanced results about it in CHEP2010. I will also present results about an Infinibandbased event-builder in CHEP2010, and update the status of the FEST upgrade in TWEPP2010.I am a guide in the LHCb experiment. Visits were done for private networking, industrialpartner events (Dell, Force10), summer students, etc.Summer students visits were integrated into a lab which was an introduction to DAQs inmodern HEP experiments. This lab was designed to give an overview of the DAQ works tothese future physicists or computer scientists. As I was involved in the ISOTDAQ school thatACEOLE sponsors, I decided to adapt this summer student lab to this event.LHCb has been hiring interns from my previous school for a few years now. I participatein this networking, hiring an intern a year to work on the FEST upgrade project, offering aproject to the school and following school events (forum presentation, etc.).
Impact:My projects in LHCb give me a good visibility in the LHCb collaboration. I also showed myversatility working on the survey of the RICH sub-detector, implementing the data acquisitionpart of a position monitoring tool. This was the opportunity to get closer to the LHCb surveypeople and to learn about geodetic engineering.I have a role as DAQ manager and system manager, I assume the piquet role regularly andI can make interventions on most of the systems.My investigation for 10 GbE technologies made me dealing with Chelsio and we established agood relationship during my tests: I was sending them feedback about their drivers and theywere acknowledging it giving me pre-released versions.I share my knowledge with many students during the CERN summer program, with the linkI have with my school and soon with the ISOTDAQ school. I hope students could learn fromme as much as I did teaching them.Though the impact of this Marie-Curie project on my career is already impressive, I stillhave to achieve and to learn a lot. I enter now in the second half of my ACEOLE contract.My secondment will be the opportunity to carry out a 3-month project in an industrialenvironment by the end of 2010.
Magnoni Luca
Early Stage ACEOLE Researcher
Mid term review report – 3rd August 2010
Training
The CERN learning and development framework provides an easy access to many
training categories, from technical to management and communications, and
during this first year as ACEOLE researcher it has been a very good
experience to attend several courses on different subjects.
Two complementary courses: "Poster and Presentation making workshop" and "Leaders in science, learning from experience" give me useful lessons on how to improve and optimize my presentation and communication skills. From the
same framework, I have also attended several technical courses and lectures:
"Advanced C++ lectures", "Secure coding for Web Applications and Web Services", "Secure coding for Java" and "Python - Hands-on Introduction". All these courses were very effective and interactive, teachers were qualified and
this definitively improved my technical knowledge on subjects.
Thanks to the collaboration between the CERN and the Ecole Polytechnique
Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) I had the possibility to attend an high level
university course in the Computer Science master programme about "Pattern Classification and Machine Learning", it has been a significative experience both for my work as for my PhD career.
For what concern my technical work, I found a very good training
infrastructure inside the ATLAS TDAQ group, this allow me to quickly
understand main concepts and being actively involved in technical task. I
consider also a valuable training experience the research and development work
in such a challenging context.
Finally, the tutor experience I have done at the ISOTDAQ School 2010 improved
my teaching skills and my capability to interact with students.
Technical work
My research is part of the WP5 (Data acquisition and high level triggering
systems), in particular I work on the ATLAS Trigger and Data Acquisition
(TDAQ) system, that is the infrastructure responsible for filtering and
transferring ATLAS experimental data from detectors the mass storage system.
The main goal of my work is to study, design and implement a software system
able to gather and process huge amount of information coming from the ATLAS
TDAQ infrastructure in order to understand the overall system health and
possibly to react in case of incorrect behavior and errors.
At the same time, I am responsible for the existing TDAQ online expert system,
a software component to automatically manage the recovery procedures in the
TDAQ framework during ATLAS data taking operations.
This twofold role requires both the study and understanding of the current
TDAQ infrastructure, in order to maintain existing components and propose
improvements and upgrades, as well as the investigation and research on new
technologies that better suit new project requirements.
The challenging part of this new project is to study and understand pattern
classification and machine learning techniques in order to extract
significative information from the TDAQ system and use them to drive recovery
actions and to build effective visualization for end users.
I really appreciate the freedom I have in exploring design choices and new
technologies, this allow me to improve my experience on several modern
programming frameworks. As a first result of this approach, I developed a
prototype to simplify and improve system analysis and errors detection tasks,
named TDAQ Analytics Dashboard. It is a web application that aims to collect,
correlate and visualize effectively this real time flow of information. It is
composed by a correlation engine and by a rich internet applications to
visualize analytics data. This prototype is now evolved in a stable component
and it is currently used in ATLAS TDAQ production environment, and its
evolution represent the foundation of my research project.
Dissemination
In the first half of this year I have attended two ATLAS conference : the
"ATLAS TDAQ week" at CERN and the "ATLAS Overview week" in Barcelona to get
acquainted with ATLAS environment and understand TDAQ framework details.
As soon as my experience and personal contribution grown, I had several
opportunities to present my work during internal technical meetings. I have
been responsible to prepare and present a general report about my team work in
the last "ATLAS TDAQ week" at CERN in May 2010. I consider a very good
dissemination experience the work as tutor at the ISOTDAQ school 2010 in
Ankara and finally I have presented a detailed report of my research progress
at the University of Ferrara as PhD first-year summary.
Impact
I consider this first year as ACEOLE researcher as a fundamental experience in
my career, allowing me to improve in my social, organizational and technical
competences. CERN is an ideal place to work for a researcher, it offers
several facilities to promote a smooth integration of newcomers and its
international nature allow to meet people working on same subjects and to
share ideas in a easy and friendly way. I had the opportunity to apply my
experience and knowledge developing solutions for existing problems as well as
I had the possibility to explore new technologies and framework. At the same
time, I have improved my skills in coordination with team and in work
analysis, planning and organization. I believe my research contribution can be
very useful to the TDAQ community, in particular for what concern exploring
modern programming technologies and frameworks to find optimal solution for
existing use cases.
Training
Michal Bochenek started his contract as the ACEOLE Early Stage Researcher on the 1st of October 2008.
The first months of his stay at CERN were dedicated to training in order to gather the necessary skills
and experience needed in the ASIC design process. During this period of time, Michal attended the
course “Operational Amplifiers: Theory and Design” (November 2008) organized by MEAD and TU Delft.
In the first months of Michal’s contract, he also participated in the International Solid-State Circuits
Conference, which took place in San Francisco. While there, he attended two short courses: “Adaptive
Power Management” and “Low-voltage and Mixed Signal CMOS Circuit Design” (February 2009).
At the beginning of 2009, Michal participated in two workshops whose subject was closely related to his
work: “SLHC-PP Annual Meeting” (February 2009) and “Second Common ATLAS CMS Electronics
Workshop for SLHC” (March 2010).
In May 2009, Michal took part in the “EIROforum School of Instrumentation” which was organized at
CERN. He also attended a course organized by the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, “Low-
Power, Low Voltage Analog IC Design” (June 2009). In order to improve his knowledge about CAD tools
used in the ASIC design process, Michal attended two courses organized by STFC Rutherford Appleton
Laboratory, “Introduction to Analogue IC Design: Schematic entry and simulation” (November 2010) and
“Introduction to Analogue IC Design: Layout and post layout verification” (January 2010).
In the near future, Michal is planning to participate in two courses on the EPFL: “Advanced Analog CMOS
IC Design” and “Power Management” (both in August 2010).
Apart from technical training, Michal actively participates in complementary training. He completed four
levels of a French course (one level at CERN and three levels at Ecole Migros in Geneva). He also took
part in the course organized for the ACEOLE researchers “Marie Curie Fellows at CERN for general and
poster presentations” (November 2009). Finally, Michal attended two management courses, organized
by the CERN Human Resources department, “Managing Teams” (November 2009) and “Project
Engineering” (January 2010).
Michal’s secondment is planned at the AGH - University of Science and Technology in Krakow, Poland.
The preferred duration of the secondment is 3 months during 36 months of the Early Stage Researcher
fellow contract. During this time Michal will participate in preliminary tests of the full ATLAS SCT readout
chips integrated with the power distribution system designed during his contract at CERN.
Technical work
Michal, from the very beginning of his contract, has been involved in the High Luminosity Upgrade
project for the ATLAS experiment. In his work he concentrates on development of the new power
management building blocks. In the future, those blocks, will allow the testing of various power
distribution system schemes in future high energy physics experiments.
There are two main approaches considered at this moment, for the upgraded ATLAS Inner Tracker: DC-
DC conversion and the serial powering scheme.
Michal’s task was to design and optimize an integrated switched capacitor DC-DC step-up charge pump
and step-down converter, both implemented in the 130nm IBM technology. The main goal was achieved
and the chip containing the prototype converters for the ATLAS experiment was submitted in the MPW
at the end of May 2010. One of Michal’s designs (step-down DC-DC converter) is also used in the in the
chip dedicated for the CMS experiment. Recently Michal has been involved in the assembly process of
the chip build in cooperation with engineers from the University of Pennsylvania, AGH - University of
Science and Technology Krakow and CERN. This chip was also typed-out during the submission in June.
To build the prototype chips, Michal had to become familiar with the theory, analysis and design process
of the analog integrated circuits: DC-DC converters (charge pumps, voltage doublers and step-down
converters), the operational amplifiers, the standard and the low-dropout voltage regulators as well as
with the CAD tools, dedicated to the ASICs design.
In parallel to the ASIC design process, he is involved in research concerning radiation tests of the deep
submicron CMOS technologies. The main task is to measure the influence of the radiation on the
parameters of MOS devices at room and low temperature. The test structures used in those
experiments were manufactured in 90nm and 130nm IBM technology.
Dissemination
Michal presented the results of his work during the TWEPP-09 Topical Workshop on Electronics for
Particle Physics which took place in Paris in September 2009. He presented a poster and a paper “An
integrated DC-DC step-up charge pump and step-down converter in 130 nm technology”. Some of the
results were shown during the last ATLAS–CMS Power Working Group (“Design of on-chip switched
capacitor converters”) (March 2010). Michal also presents his achievements regularly during formal and
informal meetings of the ATLAS powering group.
Recently Michal has been involved in the preparation and organization of the TDAQ School which will be
organized in February 2011 in Rome. He’s responsible for preparing the labs concerning the design and
testing process of the modern CMOS integrated circuits.
Impact
The Marie Curie Fellowship programme allows the gathering of knowledge and experience and provides
an opportunity to improve the technical skills (by participating in courses, conferences, workshops) as
well as social skills (management course, language courses).
Attending the conferences allows the development of a network of contacts, which will be very useful in
terms of searching for a job after the end of the fellowship at CERN.
Michal’s work done during the Marie Curie Fellowship programme at CERN is in fact closely connected
with the topic of his PhD thesis. Thanks to his stay at CERN, much progress with research activities has
been done due to the fact that CERN is a natural place for training. The PhD thesis which will conclude
the three years of Michal’s fellowship will be interdisciplinary, between applied physics and electronic
engineering.
ACEOLE: A Marie Curie ITN Project Midterm review report
Sebastian Bukowiec
SUMMARY
Beginning of the contract: 1st of May 2009 Position: Early-stage researcher
Training 1. CERN School of Computing in Gottingen (Germany), 16-29 August 2009 2. Making Presentations Course, 14-15 October 2009 3. JAVA 2 Enterprise Edition - Part 1: Web Applications, 22-23 October 2009 4. JAVA - Level 2, 16-19 November 2009 5. General and Professional French course, 12 October - 18 December 2009 6. Italien Focus Power A1.2 Language Course, 19 January - 25 March 2010 7. C++ Part 1 - Hands-On Introduction, 17-18, 26 March 2010 8. Confidence-Building Course, 15-16 June 2010
Technical work From beginning of my contract (1st of May 2009) I’m responsible for
developing and maintenance of the CMS electronic logbook (ELog). The CMS ELogbook (ELog) is a collaborative tool, which provides a platform to share and store information about various events or problems occurring in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at CERN during data taking. The ELog is based on a Model–View–Controller (MVC) software architectural pattern and uses an Oracle database to store messages and attachments. The ELog is developed as a pluggable web component in Oracle Portal in order to provide better management, monitoring and security. Work on Elog allows me not only to acquire technical knowledge but also build a network of contacts by participating in meetings concerning the development of the tool and by the providing support to users.
From February 2010 I started studies of future readout links for the CMS experiment. The second project, to which I was assigned, aims to perform research on a possible replacement of the existing S-LINK64 implementation by an optical link, based on 10 Gigabit Ethernet. The new link will employ commercial protocols in order to be able to receive the data by standard hardware components like PCs or network switches. The S-LINK64 extension (Simple Link Interface 64 bit) is a specification introduced by the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) experiment that defines a protocol, electrical interface and form factor for a point-to-point, high-speed 64-bit data link. It does not specify the implementation of the physical link. It extends the S-LINK specification developed at CERN. CMS developed an electrical implementation of this link operating at 400 MB/s in order to read out the detector.
Dissemination 1. The International School of Trigger and Data Acquisition, Ankara, Turkey
1-8 February 2010 (Instructor of the following laboratories: Programming an FPGA, Data readout from a PCI module)
2. The 17th Real Time Conference in Lisbon, Portugal, 24-28 May 2010 (Poster presentation: The CMS Electronic Logbook)
3. ESOF 2010 Torino Marie Curie Workshop, 1-2 June 2010
Impact
Impact on my career
Marie Curie contract gives me opportunity to develop my career at every level I want: technical, interpersonal and linguistic. Working in such place like CERN I’m continuously motivated to become a better specialist, teach me how to work in en international environment and gives the possibility to meet extraordinary people. Beside I have easy access to the technologies that in other places are hardly available and I can participate in extremely interesting projects.
My impact on the world
Apart of doing my job as best as I can I try to be an active part of a team and exchange acquired knowledge with my colleges, and all other people who need my help.
Mid-term review report Name: Spyridon Papadopoulos Project: ACEOLE Supervisor: Jan Troska
Introduction
CERN is an ideal place for carrying out exceptional research. I personally believe that the
most important asset of the organization is its human resources; experts in a variety of
fields are working together, creating a unique environment, where research can flourish
through collaboration. CERN has an exceptional record of scientific discoveries and
technological innovations, which have greatly improved the quality of life of millions of
people around the world. I feel grateful that as an ACEOLE researcher I have the
opportunity to work and carry out my research in such an environment.
Training
ACEOLE has given me the opportunity to pursue one of my career goals which is to
work towards the degree of a PhD. Provision of excellent level of academic coaching is
ensured by my supervisors, both at CERN and the associated partner, which for the
project I am working on is University College London (UCL), a world-leading university.
I have spent some valuable time at UCL during my secondments, allowing me to benefit
the most from this collaboration. I would also like to acknowledge the valuable help of
the experienced researcher, with whom I enjoyed an excellent working relationship.
An additional source of knowledge has been the attendance of conferences. I had the
opportunity to attend one of the largest and most significant conferences on Optical
Communications worldwide (ECOC – European Conference on Optical
Communications). I have also participated in a conference organized by a number of
universities (LCS – London Communications Symposium), including UCL, where I had
the chance to learn from other researchers’ presentations, as well as present my own
work.
CERN also provides a number of opportunities for supplementary training, for example
language and management courses. I have attended a French language course. I also had
the opportunity to enhance my presentation skills, as I have attended a relevant course.
Technical Aspects
My work at CERN is related to the use of optical fiber links in order to transfer different
types of information to and from the detector. During the first year of my work at CERN
I have carried out research, along with the experienced researcher, on the applicability of
specific commercial fiber optic technologies (Time Domain Multiplexing Passive Optical
Networks – TDM PONs) in order to transport trigger timing and control signals. The
outcome of this work has been a network prototype demonstrating that the particular
technology could be used in such an application. One of the special requirements of this
prototype is that it can guarantee fixed and deterministic latency an essential requirement
for the distribution of the clock at the LHC.
Currently I am working on an optical network architecture based on suggested
architectures for the next generation of optical access networks, which can potentially
carry all types of information using a single infrastructure at the SLHC. One of the main
challenges encountered is the very high data rate required to carry the data from the
detector. An interesting aspect of the architecture is that the data rate requirement is much
higher in the upstream than in the downstream. The technology in discussion
(Wavelength Division Multiplexing Passive Optical Networks – WDM PONs) has
attracted a lot of interest in the research community. Several options are under
investigation, as application of commercial solutions in a particle physics environment
can be challenging, due to the special requirements imposed by the environment (e.g.
radiation hardness, special temperature operating range, mass and power requirements).
This problem set requires collaboration between people at CERN, and the associated
partner, UCL, to be solved. The collaboration has worked perfectly up to now and this is
reflected in the results that have been achieved so far (in both the TDM PON and the
WDM PON cases).
Dissemination
Since I joined CERN, I had numerous opportunities to present my work. I have given
presentations in ACEOLE meetings, I have participated to a conference (London
Communications Symposium – LCS), where I had the chance to present my work and I
have also given a number of presentations during the meetings of my group. This
experience, coupled with a formal presentation training course I have attended, have
greatly enhanced my presentation skills.
The attendance of conferences allowed me to establish contacts with people in the optical
communications industry.
Impact
The work that is being carried out, has already led to simplified network architecture,
based on commercially available components that can transport certain types of
information. Extension of this work to generate a single network architecture that could
transport all types of information is already underway. The chosen technology is the most
prominent candidate for the next-generation of access networks, meaning that our
findings can also significantly contribute to the development of the field. I strongly
believe that the experience I gained is going to have a very positive impact on my career,
as it has helped me to enhance both my technical and my managerial skills.
MIDTERM REPORT : INFORMATION TO BE PRESENTED AT MIDTERM REVIEW SARAH SEIF EL NASR -STOREY
PAGE 1 OF 2
Midterm Report Objective
The objective of this report is to provide you with the information which I will present
during my presentation at the midterm report in August of this year. I will briefly describe
the four aspects of my time as an ACEOLE fellow which are to be the focus of this
presentation
Training
During my time as an ACEOLE researcher at CERN I’ve had the opportunity to receive
training that is both directly related and complimentary to my research.
In regards to technical training, I have learnt about characterizing optical signals and
devices from my colleagues and supervisor in the Optoelectronics group here at CERN. I had
the opportunity to learn how to use AutoDeskInventor( 3D design tool) to create a
component which is now used in my experiment’s test set up.I have also had to develop my
LabView skills to cope with the demands set by using LabView to control both the
performance and the data acquisition aspects of my experiment. I have also learnt how to
plan and execute an experiment at a test facility : from booking the beam time at an
institute, to designing aspects of the experiment and arranging all the different logistics
associated with it.
I have also had the opportunity to attend the short course of the RADECs 2009 conference
on “Towards Modeling Radiation Effects in Nano-Scale Systems”, which was aimed towards
providing an introduction on the basics of radiation effects.
As for complimentary training, I have participated in the following courses offered here at
CERN:
• Language training : Levels 2& 3 of French
• “Making Presentations Course”
• “Confidence building course : Leaders In Science - Learning From Experience”
Technical
My research project is focused on developing a radiation hard optical link to be used in LHC
experiments when the LHC is upgraded to the SLHC(Super LHC ) , which means an increase
in luminosity and therefore the radiation doses received by the optical links currently
installed. The main focus of my research is to develop and carry out a series of Single-Event
MIDTERM REPORT : INFORMATION TO BE PRESENTED AT MIDTERM REVIEW SARAH SEIF EL NASR -STOREY
PAGE 2 OF 2
Upset tests at a proton irradiation facility at PSI - to try and understand the behavior of
candidate optical devices to be used in the optical links.
I assisted in the first total dose test performed at Louvain la Neuve in August of 2009, and
by the time I give this presentation we should have carried out the first of the SEU tests.
Dissemniation
I have had to update my colleagues in the Optoelectronics group with the progress I am
making on developing the radiation test ( and eventually the subsequent results ) every few
months. I also hope to present the results from the first Single Event Upset test at RADECs
2010.
Impact
Hopefully, once this SEU test has happened - then I would have contributed to the
development of the next generation of optical links for the LHC experiments - this test will
answer some of the questions raised by the previous tests done in the group with regards to
the combined behavior of optical receivers and their amplifiers in a radiation environment.
The impact that my time as an ACEOLE researcher has had on my career
• Made contacts within industry( suppliers of parts needed for the radiation test)
• Improve my communication skills via the complimentary training
• Exposure to a large part of the european scientific community by being based here at
CERN
• Become part of an established network of researchers ( Marie Curie fellows ).
Midterm report 06/2010
Name of fellow: Timo Tick Department: CERN – PH/ESE Name of Supervisor: Michael Campbell Industrial partner: VTT, Espoo, Finland Work package: WP1 - Interconnections Overview of the work: Timo Tick is a part of the microelectronics group of Physics department. His research aims to study and
develop large area tiling solutions and techniques for silicon pixel detectors. The work begun with a
literature study of large area tiling solutions. (Deliverable 1.1) Related to this topic, Timo is also working
in close collaboration with VTT’s team in a joint VTT-CERN project that aims to develop and set up a
Through Silicon Via manufacturing process at VTT for CERN pixel detector read out chips. Currently Timo
is designing a photon detector prototype for the Medipix collaboration. The aim of this prototype is to
demonstrate the feasibility of a tileable, Micro Channel Plate Hybrid Photon Detector (MCP-HPD) with
high sensitive area fraction (Deliverable 1.2). Parallel to his work with the large area tiling study of
detectors, Timo works in a Microelectronics group internal low cost wafer bumping project where he
investigates and evaluates new low cost flip chip bonding solutions for future CERN detector upgrades
with Mr. Sami Vahanen. In addition to these, Timo has consulted Medipix collaboration partners’
projects that require the purchasing and/or the use of ceramic multilayer circuits and LHCb
collaboration’s VELO upgrade project as well as finished his doctoral thesis.
Overview of the training: Due to the cyclic nature of Timo Tick’s work in Interconnection work package the decision was made
that instead of one long secondment to VTT, it would be more beneficial to do multiple 1-2 week visits.
Timo’s work, in general, includes three main phases, manufacturing, measurement and analysis, of
which only the manufacturing takes place at VTT. Measurement and analysis is done at CERN.
Experience of Integrated Circuit (IC) manufacturing techniques cannot be attained anywhere else than in
an IC fabrication facility. The arrangement of the secondment has allowed extremely efficient use of
both Timo’s and VTT’s resources; all the days spent at the industrial partners site so far (26 working
days, during 4 visits), have included safety training, equipment training or hands on work in the clean
room IC fabrication facility. In addition to his training at VTT Timo has received internal training by his
colleagues about pixel detectors, detector read out chip electronics and thermal simulations.
Additionally Timo participated in the Electronics Components and Technology Conference (ECTC2009)
and will present the results of he’s work in the upcoming Topical Workshop for Electronics in Particle
Physics (TWEPP 2010).
ACEOLE Midterm Review Report
Yi Ling Hwong
Technical Work
The goal of the project I am involved in as an ACEOLE fellow at CERN is to develop an analysis tool for the Finite State
Machine (FSM) system of the Detector Control System (DCS) of the CMS experiment. In order to carry out the task, I
attended a few training courses during the first few months of my employment to gain the basic knowledge and skills
related to the Detector Control System. In the course of my project I established collaboration with a team from the
department of Computer Science of the Technical University of Eindhoven (TUE) who is developing a toolset called
mCRL2 for modeling, validation, verification and analysis of large distributed systems. We decided to use the mCRL2
toolset for the analysis and verification purposes of the CMS FSM system. The project is called FiSMAT (Finite State
Machine Analysis Toolkit) and is divided into four main parts. The first part is the translation of the State Manager
Language (SML), which is the language in which the FSM system is developed, into the mCRL2 language. This is done
automatically through a compiler which is developed with the ASF+SDF Meta Environment toolset. The second part is
the application of the mCRL2 toolset for the simulation, visualization and property checking of the FSM. The third part is
the use of a few other light‐weighted tools to complement some of the more extensive and elaborate mCRL2 tools for
certain local property checking (for example endless loop freedom) of the FSM. The final part of the FiSMAT toolkit is the
automatic extraction of the FSM code from the Oracle database, which provides a centralized access to the FSM code
developed by the different sub‐detector groups. The FiSMAT toolkit is used to analyze the FSM code of the CMS RPC
sub‐detector and the result was presented during the CMS week where I gave a presentation of my work.
Training
Besides the technical project that I am involved in, I also attended many formal and complementary training courses, as well as conferences. Below is a list of the training opportunities that I have attended:
I. Formal Training Courses
1. Oracle SQL course: 02.02.2009 – 06.02.2009 2. PVSS JCOP Framework course: 09.02.2009 – 13.02.2009 3. FSM course: 16.02.2009 – 20.02.2009 4. JAVA Level 1: 27.04.2009 – 30.04.2009
II. Complementary Training Courses
1. Professional French course level 2 (at CERN): February – April 2009 2. Professional French course level 4 (at CERN): October – December 2009 3. Professional French course level B1 (Migros language school): February – May 2010 4. Presentation course (How to make a poster): 17.11.2009, 23.11.2009 – 24.11.2009
III. Conferences
1. Computing in High Energy Physics Conference (CHEP) 2009: 23.03.2009 – 27.03. 2009 2. Real Time Conference (RT2009) 2009: 10.05.2009 – 15.05.2009 3. International Conference for Accelerator and Large Experimental Physics Control System Conference (ICALEPCS) 2009: 12.10.2009 – 16.10.2009 4. Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF) Marie Curie Conference 2010: 30.06.2010 – 02.07.2010
IV. Others
1. Collaboration establishment and training trip to the Technical University of Eindhoven: 03.08.2009 – 07.08.2009 2. Collaboration establishment and training trip to the Technical University of Eindhoven: 30.11.2009 – 04.12.2009 3. Lab instructor in the International School of Trigger and Data Acquisition (ISOTDAQ) in Ankara, Turkey: 01.02.2010
– 08.02.2010 4. Supervision of student from the Technical University of Eindhoven: March – May 2010
Dissemination
1. Paper ‐ An Analysis of the Control Hierarchy Modeling of the CMS Detector Control System (Conference proceeding for ICALEPCS 2009)
2. Poster – An Anaylsis of the Control Hierarchy Modeling of the CMS Detector Control Systen (Presented at the ICALEPCS conference 2009)
3. Paper – Towards the Verification of the Control Software of the Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (FMICS 2010 Workshop)
4. Presentation (Poster, Talk) – FiSMAT – A Finite State Machine Analysis Toolkit (ESOF 2010 Marie Curie conference)
Impact
Impact of ACEOLE on me ‐ What would I miss if ACEOLE were not here?
The ACEOLE program has given me the opportunity to lead, to coordinate, to initiate, to learn and to teach. Through the different and extensive training and the involvement in challenging technical work, I now have a clearer idea of what I want to achieve in my career. The ACEOLE program has laid down the foundation and given me the means to achieve my goals – both professionally and personally.
Impact of me on the world ‐ What would the world miss if I were not here?
My contribution in a major project in the CMS experiment has brought about encouraging results and my group has given me very positive feedback on my work. I initiated a collaboration with the Technical University of Eindhoven (TUe) in the Netherlands and this has enabled my group to make connections with experts from my field of research, bringing about a synergy between two important research institutes which harbors potential impact on future scientific projects.
Pedro Cardoso, ESR on WP2
Introduction On the 1st of June 2009 I joined the Microelectronics group of CERN to work as an IC Designer mainly on analogue and mixed-signal circuit design. The work to be carried-out aims at developing building blocks for the front-end electronics of the detector readout systems in the framework of the GBTX project. My contribution will be the design of a testable very low phase noise Phase-Locked Loop (PLL). The circuit will include some special features such as auto-calibration and self-test of the main circuit (PLL).
Access to advanced training has been provided trough the doctoral program at Porto’s University (secondment), MEAD’s courses at EPFL and attendance to tutorials on Conferences.
So far two circuits have been designed with the cooperation of the associated partner (“Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto” - FEUP). The first is a Voltage Controlled Crystal Oscillator, which will be integrated in the PLL. The second circuit is a jitter measurement circuit that will be included on the testing part of the circuit. Following these developments, both the Phase and Frequency detector, Charge-Pump and the Frequency Divider will be designed to complete the most important circuits on the PLL. The circuit will be designed at CERN using the IBM CMOS 130 nm technology.
Submission of the design for fabrication is foreseen for January 2011.
Training The training program has been planned and divided as follows.
On-Job Training On-job training is always present, either by self-study or discussion of the problems with the supervisors and colleagues. Some examples are presented below:
• Self-Study o Get acquainted with the State-of-the-art o Cadence software training o “Phase Locked Loops” theory o Noise theory o Behavioural Modelling of a PLL and simulation within MatLab
• Discussion o Circuit related issues: unexpected simulation behaviour and circuit’s design
optimization. o Cadence functionalities o Integration and design steps to be performed before the circuit’s submission o Building clocks to be designed and integrated o Characterization of the specifications for each circuit
Technical Training Technical training provided on advanced IC design, either through courses or through the PhD program. A MEAD’s course named "PLLs, VCOs and Frequency Synthesizers", organized by Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), was attended between the 29th of June and 1st of July 2009 at EPFL.
During this course, the most important aspects of “Phase Locked Loops” design were covered.
On the 14th of September the short-course entitled "Nanoscale CMOS analog design from devices to system", was attended during the ESSCIRC 2009 Conference, in Athens. This topic focused on the design of integrated circuits in weak inversion. Techniques that render the first steps of the circuit design independent from the technology being used were discussed.
Secondment As a part of the training, the PhD in “Electrical and Computer Engineering” started in September 2009, at the “Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto” (FEUP). The doctoral program is divided into one year of courses and two years of research. During six months four mandatory courses were attended and completed successfully. The plan of studies for the first semester of the first year was:
• Microelectronic and Microelectromechanical technologies – contents cover semiconductors theory, design and simulation of analogue CMOS microelectronics, and design and simulation of micro-electro-mechanical systems. Evaluation was done through, presentations, projects and exams.
• Test and Design for Testability – contents covered the most important analogue, mixed-signal and digital testing techniques and IEEE test bus standards. The evaluation was based on: presentations, projects and two exams.
• Digital Communications Systems – Course on the foundations of Telecommunications covering modulation, coding, error correction and noise. which consisted of attendance to classes, presentations and projects.
• Seminars – Course directed to thesis and dissemination of scientific results preparation, which was divided in two parts:
o Well know experts on diverse subjects delivered lectures about up to date topics. o Recently graduated PhD students also had to present their research work, focusing
on the following aspects: research theme, major work challenges, the solutions adopted and, novelty of the work.
Relating to the first part of the course, students had to choose one of the lectures and write a report and prepare and deliver a presentation about it. Concerning the second part, a report was written about one of the presented research themes. A critical analysis of the research method, and what could have been added or improved was performed.
Technical A set of robust ASIC building blocks and functions need to be developed to meet the requirements of front-end electronics and detector readout systems of future experiments upgrades of the existing detectors. The project aims to design, characterize and qualify one or more low-power, ASIC building blocks or functions using a new commercial 130 nm CMOS technology. These circuits shall adopt structural and functional radiation tolerant design techniques in order to make them robust to total dose and single event phenomena. Modern microelectronic CAD tools and mixed-signal, semi-custom and full-custom VLSI design methods will be adopted in the design of a radiation tolerant Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) with very low phase noise characteristics. The device will be part of a future Timing Trigger and Control system for SLHC and other experiments and will be used amongst other applications to drive high speed transceivers, high precision digital-to-analogue converters and high resolution time-to-digital converters.
The main circuit will be divided in two major parts: the “Phase-Locked Loop” and the testing blocks. As a first approach some oscillators have been designed and phase noise on oscillators studied. It was necessary to develop a new piece of software capable of simulating a behavioural model of the PLL. This software is used to choose the optimum parameters controlling the dynamic behaviour of the PLL parameters.
Circuits Developed In collaboration with FEUP two circuits were designed:
• A low-phase noise Voltage Controlled Oscillator has been designed using IBM CMOS 130 nm running at a frequency of 80 MHz. As this block will be part of the final PLL a frequency divider will be inserted in the loop, in order to achieve the same frequency as the reference signal.
• A “High Resolution Clock Jitter Monitor” has been designed in Verilog, which allows on-chip jitter measurement allowing the chip to be less dependent on Automatic Test Equipment (ATE).
The design of the following blocks: the Phase and frequency Detector (PFD), Charge Pump and the Frequency Divider is still in progress. These three blocks will conclude the main loop of the PLL.
Dissemination of scientific results The dissemination of the work is being done trough presentations and through the project’s SharePoint.
Presentations:
• “Design of High-Performance oscillators” – presentation at CERN for the microelectronics group.
• “IEEE 1149.6” – Class delivered under the framework of the PhD
• “Analogue Faults” – Class delivered under the framework of the PhD
• “Analogue BIST” – Class delivered under the framework of the PhD
A project website was setup to facilitate the sharing of the information concerning the project:
https://espace.cern.ch/proj-gbt10/default.aspx
Impact • Experiments – this work is being developed under the framework of GBTX project which
aims at implementing very high speed data communication links for data acquisition systems in the High Energy Physics experiments at CERN.
• This work allows the associated partner to gain experience in designing low-noise radiation-hard circuits. Moreover, techniques developed previously by the associated partner will be proved for single event tolerance.
• The current areas of research are: o Low power and low noise o Radiation hardened Circuit o Built-in Testing Blocks o Possibility of using a codeword to reprogram the chip.
• Career – after this program is over I expect to be an experienced IC designer focused on Low Noise PLL/Frequency Synthesizer’s design, ready to face the employment.
From: [email protected]: Seamus HegartyCc: Robert Andrew MclarenSubject: RE: ACEOLE ITN 211801 - recruitmentDate: 08 July 2010 09:15:51
Dear Seamus,Dear Robert, thanks for your e-mail and the information. I am pleased to read that you have found a replacement for the ESR who left. Furthermore I agree to extend the ER position to 24 months. With my best regards Giuliana
From: Seamus Hegarty [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 10:11 AMTo: DONINI Giuliana (REA)Cc: Robert Andrew MclarenSubject: ACEOLE ITN 211801 - recruitment
Dear Giuliana, Further to our phone conversation yesterday :
1. One of the ACEOLE ESRs, Hans Versmissen from Belgium, resigned for personalreasons after nine months of recruitment contract. We have advertised theposition, interviewed six candidates by phone, and invited two of them to CERNfor full interview. We will offer the position to Paul Haigh from the UK who hasjust completed his degree studies. If he starts on 1 August, he will use up 26 outof the 27 remaining ESR months by the end of ACEOLE.
2. Two ER positions had been defined in WP5, each for 12 months. We haddifficulty in attracting a reasonable number of good applications and left thepositions open to applications for six months on the CERN recruitment website,in addition to advertising them widely across the LHC experiment collaborations.We interviewed the two most suitable candidates on paper and would like toselect one of them, Serban Georgescu from Romania. Given that we tried to findthe best possible candidates but are still in difficulty, would you agree to usmerging the two 12-month ER positions into a single 24-month ER position forSerban Georgescu? It is understood that he would only benefit from one CareerExploratory Allowance. We await your decision before offering the fellowship.
3. If you agree to the above proposal, we will of course document both of thecases in the Mid-Term Review report which we are about to send to you.
Best regards,Robert McLaren, Scientist in ChargeSeamus Hegarty, HR Administrator
ACEOLE ITN 211801CERN