1 October 2003Paul Dauncey1 Mechanics components will be complete by end of year To assemble ECAL, they need the VFE boards VFE boards require VFE chips and PCBs to be complete VFE chips Design now frozen after two iterations Production to start any day, finish by end of Dec Will be tested by the end of Jan VFE PCBs Design close to being fixed Will have two pre-production boards assembled by end of Nov Testing complete by end of Dec Complete PCB production in Jan Assembly of the VFE boards to start in Feb Start ECAL assembly in Mar System test with cosmics in Paris at latest in Jul, DESY beam test in Aug Overall ECAL schedule

1 October 2003Paul Dauncey2 Considered essential to have a VFE board/readout board test before VFE PCB production N.B. Too late to test prototype/prototype before their pre-production Will be preproduction/prototype so hard to argue they need to change if problems found Schedule would have VFE PCBs released for production in Jan To not cause a delay to this (and hence whole ECAL), would need to do VFE/readout test in Dec Possible but not likely given prototype readout boards arriving in early Nov We said at Paris we would aim for asap but Jan at latest This gives one month delay to whole ECAL assembly schedule But still aim for DESY beam test in Aug Despite delays of ~ 3 months to other parts of the project, we are the critical path for the whole ECAL BUT…

1 October 2003Paul Dauncey3 Working backwards from the end… DESY beam test in Aug and system test in Jul mean we need (minimum of) Jun for testing after board production One month is short for board production tests, crate test, testing all final firmware, system tests/commissioning, etc. Production fabrication and assembly must finish by end of May One month for this should be reasonable Production layout must finish by end of Apr Assuming changes are needed Redesign must finish by end of Mar This assumes one month for layout (!) after changes finalised Longer term

1 October 2003Paul Dauncey4 We therefore have three deadlines for firmware/testing End of Dec – be ready for VFE/readout test Presumably using Chipscope, not final firmware End of Mar – identify all changes to board Finalise hardware changes in time for re-layout (if needed) End of Jun – be ready for system test Need final, fully-functional versions of all firmware All three are critical path for whole ECAL project The final one is self-explanatory; let’s consider the other two in more detail… Testing and firmware development

1 October 2003Paul Dauncey5 Four sets of tests which we need to do 1.Run the basic readout sequence and see data out of ADCs Trigger/S&H can be randomly timed; don’t need 320MHz fine adjust 2.Measure the noise in this configuration Need to take ~100’s of events and record ADC values of all 216 chns Need to tune timing parameters of readout sequence; turn-around for changing them ~30 mins? Is this too long for sensible testing? 3.Use the DACs to see signals above the pedestals and get a (non-)linearity measurement Need DACs, calibration pulse and to have fine 320MHz adjust of S&H 4.Use the Paris cosmic testbench to see cosmic signals Need external trigger to fire FE sequence; need BE trigger logic to veto further triggers or can use Chipscope? This implies the tests will be done in Paris; only one fully-loaded pre- prototype VFE PCB anyway so unlikely to let us borrow it VFE/readout tests; by end Dec

1 October 2003Paul Dauncey6 The parts of the FE which need to be working for tests VFE/readout tests (cont)

1 October 2003Paul Dauncey7 Connectivity/layout errors JTAG tests will find these quickly Choice of FE FPGA component size/speed Need semi-final versions of FE code to be sure; what would be enough? Too much ADC noise Will be known at time of VFE tests Cause and solution may be harder to determine Missing VME functionality E.g. those not used (tested?) by CMS; DMA and VME interrupts Miscellaneous “features” or missing functionality How bad would these have to be for us to fix them if we find them? VFE required changes Should be found during VFE tests To be really sure, should have full system working; what is enough? Board changes/verification; by end Mar