Towards the Development of FPGA-Based High-Speed Data Acquisition and Online Analysis System at MHz Repetition Rate: Proposals and Major Tradeoffs

Pulse-resolved data acquisition and online analysis is a key ingredient in modern accelerator-based light sources because of the ever-increasing demands in data quality (e.g. signal-to-noise ratios, time resolution). Accelerator-based light sources, in particular those based on linear accelerators, are intrinsically less stable than lasers or other more conventional light sources because of their large scale. In order to achieve optimal data quality the properties of each light pulse need to be detected and implemented into the analysis of each respective experiment. Such schemes are of particular advantage in 4th generation light sources based on super-conducting radiofrequency (SRF) technology, since here the combination of pulse-resolved detection schemes with high-repetition-rates is particularly fruitful. In this case pulse-to-pulse instabilities can be utilized to perform studies of multi-dimensional parameter dependencies on very short timescales making particularly the operation of user facilities much more efficient. A unique high-rep-rate pulse-resolved arrival time monitor has been developed at the high-field high-repetition-rate THz user facility TELBE as a demonstrator for the European XFEL and routinely operates up to a repetition rate of 100 kHz in user experiments providing, among other things, a timing precision of few 10 femtoseconds. In this contribution we will outline how this existing scheme shall be upgraded based on FPGA technology so that it allows operation at MHz repetition rates and sub femtosecond timing precision. An architecture based on Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology will allow online analysis of the measured data at MHz repetition rate and will decrease the amount of data throughput and the required disk capacity for storing the data by orders of magnitude. Implementation of several novel purpose-built CMOS line array detector will enable to perform arrivaltime measurements at MHz repetition rates.