Minutes 1-24-2007

FDC Weekly Meeting

Date: January 24, 2007

Participants: Daniel, Tim, Roger, Fernando, Kim, Simon, Brian, Elke, Chuck, Joe

Next Meeting: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 @ 1:30 p.m.

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Fermilab Trip

 - Brian, Simon, Tim, and DSC will travel to FNAL tomorrow to meet
   with Karen Kephart to discuss the FDC design and the FNAL
   contribution to the project.
 - We have prepared a detailed agenda for the visit and this was sent
   to Karen yesterday.
 - DSC and Simon have spent some time gathering materials (write-ups
   and pictures) to take with us.
 - We have received drawings of the STB layout and wire plane layout
   from Kim and Roger.  Chuck expects to have his mechanical drawings
   completed early this afternoon and he will give them to Tim.
 - We will discuss the results from the visit at the next FDC meeting.

Cathode Mechanical Mockups

 - Brian has completed a second mechanical cathode mockup using a
   g10 frame and a multi-piece kapton sheet.  Using lessons learned
   from the first cathode board construction, the results were
   noticeably improved in the second trial.  More lessons were learned
   that will be incorporated into the third cathode.
 - An aluminized mylar ground plane is now being stretched out in the
   full-scale tensioner that was completed by the shop.  Brian will
   complete the first full cathode sandwich construction next week.
 - Brian has done some flatness measurements using a touch gauge on
   the completed cathode planes.  It looks like things were well within
   our 100 micron flatness spec.
 - There have been no new developments through the JLab Survey folks
   about measuring the cathode flatness.  We will shake things up on
   this front when we get back from FNAL.
 - DSC has spoken with Dennis Skopik about getting some space in the
   tent in the EEL clean room.  We have been told that we can have some
   space in the clean room tent sent up for Hall A.  Jack Segal is our
   contact and both Brian and DSC have spoken to him to get this process
   started.  We will probably need to occupy space by the beginning of
   summer.
 - Imperfections in the cathode flatness have been noticed due to debris
   and dust in the machine shop room where the planes are being made.
   Also the granite table has some rough areas and divots.  We will
   work to either purchase a new granite table or refinish one for
   the final cathode construction.  Brian will negotiate with folks to
   get a granite table for our use in the clean room.
 - Fernando will do some calculations to specify the aluminum thickness
   of our ground planes to ensure that cathode-to-cathode cross talk
   is below the few percent level.  He needs specs for the material
   so that he can do some calculations.  Brian will provide this to
   him along with a sample of the material being used.

STB Boards

 - Kim has updated the drawings of the STBs showing trace layouts for
   the central board.  It is clear that there is essentially no
   clearance between the HV decoupling capacitors and the wires on
   either side.  DSC proposed the idea of burying the capacitors and
   perhaps the resistors so that the boards can be stuffed prior to
   wire winding.  This idea was met favorably.  More discussion will
   follow after we talk to Karen Kephart.
 - Fernando commented that burying the components should not provide
   any heating issues and that he is not worried about any HV problems
   provided our design is sound.
 - DSC will prepare a write-up for Kim detailing the rules of thumb
   for laying out the STBs.  This write-up will include statements
   on trace width, strip-to-strip separation, ground plane requirements,
   trace angles, etc.  He will complete this work next week.

Cabling Issues

 - Joe Beaufait has joined the design group at 0.25 FTE.  He is working
   on plans for laying out and supporting the cables for, among other
   subsystems, the FDCs.
 - DSC will meet with Joe to provide him with relevant details and
   information.

Preamplifier Daughter Board

 - Fernando has been having discussions with Gerard Visser regarding
   the pulser calibration circuitry on the preamp daughter boards
   as well as on the FADCs and TDCs.
 - We will have a meeting with Gerard during his visit to JLab next
   week from 1/29 to 2/1.  DSC will organize this meeting.

Shaper/Amplifier Board

 - Simon received the shaper/amplifier board from Gerard a few days
   ago and has connected it into the FDC small-scale prototype readout.
   So far he has been working to provide Gerard with feedback regarding
   the tail cancellation and pulse shaping with the device.
 - Next week he and Gerard will work to make more detailed and
   quantitative studies and study the timing resolution.
 - We also discussed the purposes of the shaping done by the ASIC
   chip and the shaping done by the shaper board.  The shaping done
   by the ASIC chip is primarily for fixing the rise time of all pulses
   to be the same and to provide some degree of tail cancellation.  The
   shaper boards primarily allow for compatibility of the analog pulse
   with the input of the FADC and to account for smearing affects
   induced by the cables that run from the chambers to the electronics.
 - It seems that the plan is to incorporate Gerard's board into the
   design of the FADC.  However this needs some discussion.  It is
   also important to realize that the performance of Gerard's shaping
   circuit will be optimized for a particular cable length.  Thus we
   need to fix the length of the cables soon and to ensure that they
   are all the same length.

dE/dX for the FDC System

 - The decision has been made that the FDC system will not have to
   provide dE/dX information for particle identification.  It has
   been decided that all PID "holes" will be accounted for by the
   design of the Cherenkov detector.

Minutes prepared by Daniel. Send any comments or corrections along.