The Napoli group has made the project
and the realization of thwo types of hardware readout controllers:
the
ROCK, housed
in each level-1 VME crate and the ROCKM (ROCK Manager) housed in each
level-2 VME crate.
Data collected by the front-end
electronics are read upon a trigger by the ROCK through an auxiliary
custom bus (the
AUXbus), also designed by the Napoli group.
AUXbus has block transfer capability
and can sustain 50 Mbytes/s.
Data are then bufferized into a
decoupling FIFO in the ROCK board which also builds up in hardware
a sub-event.
FEE crates form a chain. Through
a Chainbus, also designed by the Napoli group, data are sent to a
level-2 crate where they are collected
by the ROCKM wich organizes chain sub-events and store them
into a decoupling FIFO.
A VME processor (based on ALPHA
chip) reads the ROCKM FIFO in block-transfer mode, and send
sub-event streams to the farm via
FDDI under the control of a Data Flow Controller.
A second level trigger is distributed
to the ROCK and the ROCKM and from them receives the busy and
halt signals.