Rapid Synchronization Recovery from Single Event Effects in the Large Hadron Collider

Abstract

The Large Hadron Collider will undergo an upgrade to become the High Luminosity – Large Hadron Collider after a long shutdown through 2029. This upgrade will significantly increase the particle collision rate, which will result in more adverse radiation effects, called single event effects, in the electronics close to the collisions, namely the RD53. To reduce data lost after a functional upset, the inter-chip communications synchronization mechanism between the RD53 and the YARR DAQ must be improved. A new synchronization system is developed and compared with the original in term of performance and hardware resource utilization. The final product shows enormous benefits in performance, reducing blocks lost to nearly 1% of the original losses with only a moderate increase in FPGA resources to accommodate the improvement. The necessary background, design, decisions, and results will be outlined and discussed in this thesis.