Advancements of ELBE Timing System Upgrade

Modern Big physics experiments call for optimizations of machines in various aspects. Integration of an advanced control system is one of them, and timing system as controls’ backbone is most often required to be upgraded significantly or even designed and implemented anew. The complexity of experiments at HZDR ELBE and the range of varieties of its instruments and subsystems is combined with top-notch performance requirements. These, coupled with hardware obsolescence, dictate an implementation of an advanced timing system, surpassing a system, that was designed initially. The new timing system must be compatible with all existing timing triggering patterns and must provide configuration option for new features. It is designed to generate trigger patterns for shot on demand to 26 MHz cw which requires a universal and complex implementation of the pattern composition and validity checks. The design of this timing solution further demands the adaptation and the modification of the event-based timing system built on MRF HW. As a result, we realized the new Control Software with an extended range of functionalities. While maintaining the common functionality we made it suitable for the most demanding experiments today.