A novel digital pulse processing architecture for nuclear instrumentation

Y. Moline (1) , M. Thevenin (1) , G. Corre (1) , M. Paindavoine (2)

1 LCAE - Laboratoire Capteurs et Architectures Electroniques
2 LEAD - Laboratoire d'Etude de l'Apprentissage et du Développement [Dijon]

This paper introduces a specific Multiple Program Multiple Data (MPMD) architecture designed to address the issues of nuclear instrumentation: pulse processing, real-time, multi-channel flexibility, dead-time management and programmability. The proposed architecture comprises a set of independent and programmable functional units. Their execution is driven by the pulses arrival. It is able to deal with non-deterministic events and program durations. The virtual prototype of the architecture is developed in cycle-accurate SystemC and shows promising results in terms of scalability while maintaining zero dead-time. This architecture paves the way for novel programmable embedded real-time pulse processing restricted until now to offline processing.

Keywords: Algorithm design and analysis; fission reactor instrumentation; nuclear engineering computing; digital pulse processing architecture; nuclear instrumentation; multiple program multiple data architecture; MPMD architecture; real-time flexibility; multichannel flexibility; dead-time management; dead-time programmability; programmable functional unit; independent functional unit; program durations; virtual architecture prototype; cycle-accurate SystemC; dead-time scalability; programmable embedded real-time pulse processing; offline processing; Digital Pulse Processing; Digital Architecture; Computer architecture; Instruments; Software algorithms; Digital signal processing; Scalability; Field programmable gate arrays

Domains: Physics [physics]; Nuclear Experiment [nucl-ex]; Computer Science [cs]; Signal and Image Processing; Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Instrumentation and Detectors [physics.ins-det]; Engineering Sciences [physics]; Electronics; Statistics [stat]; Methodology [stat.ME]

Y. Moline, M. Thevenin, G. Corre, M. Paindavoine. A novel digital pulse processing architecture for nuclear instrumentation. 2015 4th International Conference on Advancements in Nuclear Instrumentation Measurement Methods and their Applications (ANIMMA), Apr 2015, Lisbon, Portugal. pp.7465559, ⟨10.1109/ANIMMA.2015.7465559⟩. ⟨cea-01823367⟩