1. Electronics reorganization
This has been “in the air” since quite some time
General presentation by Lucie Linssen and Allain Gonidec made in senior staff meeting November
Finalization and commissioning of LHC experiments critical and complicated
Long term future of CERN depends critically on this.
CERN has a double role as host lab. and collaborating institute
Maintenance and effective running of experiments must be assured
Reduction in people over the next few years
Many retirements, replacements not guaranteed because of difficult financial situation
LD posts ending over the next few years. We can hopefully keep a significant part
Some groups already now getting below critical mass
Funding for additional manpower (keeping LD’s) not yet clear (DG white paper)
Assure critical mass and environment to make developments and maintain services for future programs: SLHC upgrades (~2015), P326, ILC,CLIC,etc.
Allow flexible and smooth transition from finalization – commissioning to a new R&D phase also covering maintenance
ESE group meeting May 14
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2. Relation with LHC experiments
Priorities of the experiments (and us)
Make the experiment work
Make the experiment work well
Make the …
Maintain the experiments
Emergency upgrades (never really officially mentioned)
R&D for SLHC
Good relation with LHC experiments needed to make a reorganization of the PH electronics possible/successful
Multiple discussions with the experiments have been made
Most agrees that current situation is unstable long term
Transition to new structure most be handled smoothly to assure that current projects/activities will be finalized with no additional delays.
Technical coordinators and electronics coordinators of the LHC experiments have defined many valuable requirements and recommendations to such an electronics group
How to control and monitor activities and resources in a common electronics group
Internal structure
Continuous discussions with the experiments will be needed
Electronics coordinators will be the major “electronics” interface to the experiments
Global project management
Electronics coordinators handles electronics coordination across the whole collaboration, of which CERN is only a part.
ESE group meeting May 14
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3. PH electronics group
Get people together working in the same field to have synergy, maintain critical mass in key technologies and when possible use common solutions and building blocks
We must not forget that we are one of many groups making electronics for experiments
Being at CERN gives us certain obligations and expected roles: General support, Infrastructure, Key technologies, “fire brigade”.
Discussions with many electronics people in PH have confirmed the need/whish to get the electronics people together in a single unit and not being dispersed in small independent units.
CERN PH have electronics expertise that is vital for the HEP community to make the LHC experiments work and build upgrades and new experiments.
On-detector: front-ends, radiation hard electronics, integration within detector, hybrids, low mass, power distribution, cooling, Definition and use of front-end ASIC’s, get data off detector, control and monitoring, qualification – reliability, etc.
Off-detector: large and complicated electronics modules, collect data from detectors, DAQ and controls interface, Use of FPGA’s and standard commercial components, etc.
Micro electronics: Analog and digital IC design, Radiation effects, radiation qualification, Access to technology, libraries, IP blocks, tools, testing and qualification, etc.
Opto electronics: lasers, receivers, radiation effects, protocols, optical infrastructure, etc.
Infrastructure: Racks, crates, power supplies, Cabling ,
Instrumentation: lab instrumentation, test beam instrumentation (pool)
Allow/encourage people to work across their defined main expertise.
Large projects need experts from different electronics fields
Mobility between sections according to needs (projects)
Projects will be organized across sections according to needs
Current PH electronics groups: ~65 staff + ~30 fellows, students, etc.
ESE group meeting May 14
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4. Definition of sections
Number of sections: 3 – 6 seems reasonable
A flat group of ~65 staff was also considered but found difficult/impossible to manage/handle with the current project structure (~55 ongoing projects)
Basic principle of sections
Not experiment wise as this is what we want to change
According to specialization
Analog, Digital, links, infrastructure
According to detector type
Micro electronics, systems, infrastructure
System1, System2, , ,system N
Micro-electronics, Front-end systems, Back-end systems
Good balance between engineers and technicians according to needs in each specific section
Role of sections are to maintain expertise in defined fields and assure required infrastructure and services for this is available (equipment, labs, tools, training, etc)
Assure service oriented functions related to specific field (MPW service, instrumentation pool, power supply, assembly, tools, testing, crates, etc.)
Participate in projects
Plan reorganization for estimated manpower situation in ~2009 (not today)
Somewhere between optimistic and pessimistic assumptions
Required infrastructure for sections
Offices, visitors, general labs, specialized labs (e.g. sub-detector labs, clean rooms)
Geographical location
Move people in same section together. Two options being studied
Whole group in same building
People in same section in same building/corridor and sections not far from each other
ESE group meeting May 14
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5. Electronics Systems for Experiments (ESE)PH
ATLAS
ALICE
Electronics steering group
“Political” project steering, 2 times per year
Electronics coordination board
Technical project steering, 2 times per month
CMS
LHCb
ESE group
Jorgen Christiansen
Mike Letheren
Total staff: 63
Fixed target
FE:
Front-End
Philippe Farthouat
Staff: 19 -> ~14
MI:
Micro-electronics
Alessandro Marchioro
Staff: 16 -> ~13
BE:
Back-End
Francois Vasey
Staff: 26 -> ~18
ESE group meeting May 14
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6. Global project management
Electronics Steering Group (ESG): “Political” control
Members:
PH deputy department head (chair)
Technical coordinators
Electronics coordinators
ESE group leader
Mandate:
Review of new projects and activities and their approval
Long term follow-up on current projects and activities
Change of major priorities when needed
Decisions: taken by mutual agreement, with PH deputy head making final decision in case of disagreement.
Meetings: Two times per year and in case of specific emergencies.
Electronics Coordination Board (ECB): “Technical” control
Members
ESE group leader (chair)
ESE sections leaders
Project/service leaders called in according to needs
Mandate
Short term follow up and change of short term priorities when needed.
Definition of common project proposals and assignment of common project specification groups across experiments.
Decisions: Taken by mutual agreement. In case of major disagreement PH deputy head is informed about situation and an electronics steering group meeting can be called to clarify situation.
Meetings: on a monthly basis
ESE group meeting May 14
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7. ESE group management Group leader Section leaders Project leaders
Assignment of resources within group, in consultancy with section leaders and project leaders.
Chair of electronics coordination board
Overall monitoring of projects and services
Organization of regular group meetings and technical seminars
Assigned for a period of maximum 3 years by PH management (renewable)
Group leader: Jorgen Christiansen with Mike Letheren as deputy
Section leaders
General supervision of staff/fellows/students in sections
Organization of services handled by section
Detailed supervision (and MARS) of section members can be delegated to senior members of the section (as sections now relatively large).
Maintain and develop expertise and infrastructure in given technology domain
MIC: Alessandro Marchioro
Front-end: Philippe Farthouat
Back-end: Francois Vasey
Project leaders
Technical responsibility of project and supervision of project team
Detailed specifications and time schedule of project
Planning and handling of project funding
If not staff member of PH-ESE: Assigned by experiment
If staff member of PH-ESE: Assigned by GL in consultation with electronics coordination board
ESE group meeting May 14
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8. Front-end Systems (FE)
Mission: Front-end (on-detector) electronics systems for CERN experiments.
Specify, design, test, qualify, produce, install, commission and maintain on-detector front-end systems in collaboration with CERN experiments.
Specify and participate in design of required ASIC’s.
Expertise:
Detector – front-end interface and integration.
Front-end readout systems
On-detector trigger pre-processing
Compact and low mass hybrid technologies.
Radiation tolerance and qualification.
EMC and magnetic field tolerance.
On-detector power distribution
Quality assurance and reliability of electronics with difficult access.
Manpower :
Engineers: 13 ~9
Technicians: 6 ~5
Fell, stud, PJAS 4 ?
Infrastructure:
General Labs
Access to clean rooms according to needs
Access to bonding facilities/services according to needs (DT2)
Experiment labs ?
ATLAS labs: TRT
CMS labs: None
Alice labs: TPC and pixel setup workbenches, (Alice pixel and TPC labs within experiment),
LHCb labs: Small HPD test setup (RICH lab within LHCb).
ESE group meeting May 14
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9. Microelectronics (MI)
Mission: Micro electronics technology and design for CERN experiments
Design, test, qualify, produce, and support analog/digital front-end ASIC’s requested/needed by experiments.
Specify in collaboration with experiments, design, qualify, produce and support common rad hard components.
Micro electronics service to HEP community
Expertise - services:
Radiation effects and radiation hard IC design.
IC technology and IC design.
Technology access and MPW service for HEP community.
Rad hard libraries and IP blocks for HEP community.
CAE for IC design.
Testing and qualification of IC’s.
IC packaging and industrial contacts.
Manpower :
Engineers: 13 ~11
Technicians: 3 2
Fell, stud, PJAS 13 ?
Infrastructure:
General Labs
IC tester + wafer prober in clean room
Xray and electron gun
Medipix Xray
Sun computer room
Bare Wafer and IC storage
ESE group meeting May 14
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10. Back-end Systems (BE)
Mission: Back-end (off-detector) electronics systems for CERN experiments + Pool
Specify, design, test, qualify, produce, install and maintain back-end electronics systems in collaboration with experiments.
Design, test, produce, qualify and install optical links and infrastructure for experiments.
Specify, tender, test, purchase and define maintenance schemes for crates, racks and bulk LV power supplies for use in non radiation environments.
Instrument Pool and purchase of general instrumentation.
Expertise:
DAQ interface.
Control system interface.
Global trigger systems.
Large complicated board design.
FPGA, HDL design and firmware.
Optical links, radiation hardness issues of optical components and opto infrastructure
Power distribution systems and related cooling
Crates and backplane busses
Rack cooling, power, monitoring
General instrumentation (Pool)
Manpower :
Engineers: 13 ~8
Technicians: 13 ~10
Fell, stud, PJAS 6 ?
Infrastructure:
General labs
Opto lab.
Rack lab.
Crate/LV PS lab
Pool reception + storage + test
Temperature cycling chamber lab.
Repair facilities for Wiener and CAEN
Experiment labs:
ATLAS labs: L1 trigger
CMS labs: CMS optical link test benches, Preshower ?, GCT ?, TTC ?
Alice labs: DDL test bench ?
LHCb labs: None
ESE group meeting May 14
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11. Handle projects/activities
General project management handled in electronics steering group
Common projects: Electronics group and PH management with feedback and acceptance from experiments
Experiment specific: Defined between ESE and experiment with acceptance by PH management
Generic R&D: Initiated within ESE to maintain expertise with guidance/acceptance from PH management and Experiments
Current number of active “projects”: 54 !
Many “soon finished”
52 FTE out of 62 directly counted in current projects
Remaining manpower used for support/maintenance of previous projects, tools, internal services, internal infrastructure, administration, etc.
Finalized projects: 27 (mainly ASIC’s)
Continued support and maintenance must be assured
ESE group meeting May 14
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12. CERN PH participation in electronics projects
Common:
Finalized: TTCrx, GOL, QPLL, HPTDC, Delay25, TTCrq
On-going: TTC machine interface, crate and power supply purchase, rack control and monitoring, Pool, IC technology access and MPW
New: GBT – versatile link, powering, 0.13um technology access and radiation qualification
ATLAS:
Finalized: TTCvi, DTMROC, TRT front-end, ABCD SCT front-end ASIC, ELMB
On-going: Electronics coordination, TRT back end and services, S-link, Central trigger processor, Local trigger interface, roman pots, SCT cooling system, EMC, DAQ interfacing, Mains power distribution
CMS:
Finalized: CCU, DCU, Laser driver, Optical receiver, LVDS mux, Ecal ADC, Preshower Pace and K chips.
On-going: Electronics coordination , Ecal, Global calorimeter trigger, Preshower, Tracker analog links, Digital control and readout links, TTC system, FEC control interface, Counting house
ALICE:
Finalized: TOF chips, Gassiplex, Pixel chip and control chips, Altro TPC chip
On-going: Electronics coordination, Pixel detector front-end and readout, TPC front-end and readout, DAQ data link, Phos electronics
LHCb:
Finalized: Muon front-end chip, HPD pixel chip
On-going: Electronics coordination, Infrastructure installation, RICH electronics integration, Velo electronics integration, CPU farm Fan monitoring
Other:
Ongoing: Totem electronics coordination, Totem front-end chip, P326, Medical, technology transfer, EUDET-TPC, EUDET-time pix, etc.
This adds up to an awful lot: 27 finalized, 54 ongoing, 10 new (plus more coming)
ESE group meeting May 14
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13. Future projects
Future projects will in many cases involve people across sections and groups.
Projects must define: (project definition, workpackage, etc.)
Final goal
Start, manpower, resources, end date, etc,
When does a project end ?:
When design finished and prototype verified ?. Production finalized ?. Installed and working ?. Fully commissioned ?. Firmware changes ?. When experiment closed down – Maintenance and repairs
Project leaders are not necessarily in same section or group as individuals working on the project.
New projects
Common: versatile - GBT optical link, Technology access, IP blocks, radiation hard power distribution, etc.
How does one reach agreement on specification of these Electronics coordinators + experts ?
Funding, manpower allocation ? (DG white paper, LHCC peer review ?)
Experiment specific: tracker upgrades, trigger, ?
ESE group meeting May 14
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14. Phase across domains ASIC On-detector Off-detector Infrastructure
Different phases in the four electronics domains
R&D: R&D
Final design + qualification: Des
Production: Prod
Installation: Ins
Commissioning: Com
Maintenance: Main
Other: Industrial contacts, tenders. Test systems
We have four very large experiments starting all at the same time !.
System definitions
Start of experiment
ASIC
R&D
Des
Prod
ASIC designers ready to start R&D and new designs before other sectors offloaded
R&D
Des
Prod
Ins
Com
On-detector
Main
Des
Prod
Ins
Com
Off-detector
Readout test systems
for R&D in on-detector
and ASIC’s
Main
Purchasing
Infrastructure
Industrial contacts
Ins
Com
Main
Des
~ 10 years (can be smaller for smaller experiments)
ESE group meeting May 14
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15. How does this fit with new set of major experiments (SLHC)
ASIC designers used as:
Electronics coordinators, Board designers,
Cooling systems,
Specialists on radiation qualification,
Evaluation of new technologies,
Technology transfer, new experiments (NA48)
Etc.
Today
ASIC
On-detector
Off-detector
Infrastructure
Infrastructure group will most likely have dip in activity
after experiments are up and running (maintenance ?).
Utilize available manpower together with off-detector to make
test and verification systems during R&D phase.
PROBLEM: On and Off detector designers (system designers) not much available during early R&D for next experiments
ESE group meeting May 14
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16. Other groups related to PH electronics
IT CAE support
Current assumption is that this CAE support is maintained in IT.
TS-DEM
Board layout service
PCB and hybrid production and test (internal or external)
Assembly workshop for prototypes and repairs
ESE group must establish a good working relation with this service
Silicon facility in DT2 (bond lab.)
Border between detector and electronics
IT-CO: Controls of experiments
Not really electronics
Controls (gas and magnets) in DT1
Electronics in machine sector
Currently not much communication with these electronics designers (spread in many specialized units)
No intention from our side to merge with this, but better communication could always be useful.
ESE group meeting May 14
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17. General schedule
Discussions with senior electronics designers (done)
General presentation made in senior staff (done)
Discussions with experiments (done)
Definition of project/resource interface between experiments and new electronics group. (done)
Make overview of current electronics projects/commitments in PH (done)
Definition of general structure and presentation to experiments (done)
Presentation of general group structure to group members (today)
Inform individuals of their proposed assignment to sections by current group leaders (within this or next week)
Detailed structure forwarded to all group members
Section meetings in the new sections
Multiple group and section meetings will follow
First combined steering group and coordination board meeting
Structure put in place: July 2007
Moving new sections together (during autumn 2007 or whenever compatible with LHC work)
Getting the new group/sections operational
ESE group meeting May 14
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18. Few basic questions seen from us electronics designers
Yet another re-organization, will it change anything for us ?
Not immediately, but will have effects on how we organize new projects and maintenance.
Must not disturb current projects, but some already now have serious lack of manpower so some re-shuffling may be needed.
Will this be the last re-organization of PH electronics: Most likely not, we must adapt to the current situation which will depend strongly on future major CERN projects (SLHC, CLIC, ?). Hopefully defined structure can stay valid for ~10 years.
Will it really improve things having people with same expertise in same section ?
Feedback from engineers shows that this is a whish among most electronics designers to stay up to date.
Find good common solutions to the same technical problem (e.g. common projects)
Use of common tools, techniques, design approaches, etc.
Daily coffees with colleagues is what allows a good exchange of experience and ideas within a given field.
How will I now have good contacts with people working on same project ?
Responsibility of project leaders (and yourself)
People working on same project will naturally tend to meet/communicate constantly.
Will it force me to work in a given field only ?
We for sure always need people with broad experience to make our large and complicated systems.
Experts in specific fields also vital for us to make our systems.
Mobility across sections will be easier, as now within same group. The problem of the hole left behind when somebody changes will for sure still exist.
Depends on needs within projects.
Will we still stay “earmarked” with the experiment we currently work for ?.
Depends on new projects and CERN responsibilities within these. People will not by default be assigned to projects for same experiment. Participation in other experiments/projects is a good experience for all of us.
There will most likely still be a tendency to work with an experiment/people one has worked with in the past.
When, how, and who will define which projects and project responsibilities will be taken care of by us ?
This is as usual a complicated political/technical/funding related subject
Emphasis will be given to:
Common projects across experiments (TTC, optical links, radiation tolerance, Power distribution, technology, etc.)
Where specific expertise is available at CERN ( Micro-electronics, detector types, hybrids, systems )
Host lab. responsibilities: Infrastructure, maintenance, and services
Funding for common projects to be clarified (DG white paper money and manpower request)
PH management, electronics coordinators and you will be instrumental for this.
ESE group meeting May 14
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19. Lots of very interesting challenges ahead of us making the electronics of world wide unique experiments work and prepare the next generation
ESE group meeting May 14
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20. Feedback Questions/comments/criticism: Now, or
Always welcome in my office
I will unfortunately be absent for the next 2 ½ weeks.
Counts on you all to help to get this to work out.
Some of you may wonder who I am
Electronics engineer specialized in computer architecture, DSP, chip design, high speed logic
Master thesis in sonar and signal processing. No PHD
3 years work as system and chip designer in a Danish startup company Scantest making special testing systems for concurrent test and burn-in of IC’s.
Started 4 people, ended up with ~15, and then crash
Came to CERN in 1989
~15 years working in CERN micro electronics group: Fastbus interface, TDC’s, TTCrx, IC test system, etc.
~8 years as LHCb electronics coordinator
Front-end architecture definition, Radiation tolerance policy, Lots of architecture, design and production readiness reviews (~50), EMC and grounding, Common LV power supply system, LECC, installation of electronics infrastructure and cabling, DSS, etc.
Many good years with fantastic collaboration with CERN and world wide external colleagues
Wants to stay in touch with real electronics.
ESE group meeting May 14
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