White Rabbit Trigger Distribution

White Rabbit Trigger Distribution (WRTD) is a generic framework for distributing triggers (events) between Nodes over a White Rabbit network.

WRTD consists of the following elements:

• an HDL module for FPGAs, built on top of Mock Turtle (MT) and the White Rabbit PTP Core. When instantiated in an FPGA, this module handles the generation/reception of triggers, while providing the user with MT cores to run their own application(s) (eg. to control an ADC).
• an embedded library framework for firmware development. This library can be used when developing firmware for the Nodes, in order to connect these user applications with the generation/reception of triggers.
• a host library (written in C) that provides a way for configuring the WRTD Nodes and scheduling the generation/reception of triggers. There is also a Python wrapper for the C library, as well as a command-line tool built on top of the Python wrapper for performing the most common operations on a WRTD Node without the need to write any custom application.

Releases

Note: starting with the v1.1.0 release of WRTD, all reference designs are maintained in a separate project. Their binaries and documentation are published here. The first such release of reference designs has been tagged as v2.0.0 to clearly differentiate it from v1.0.0 where the core and the reference designs were distributed together.

Documentation and Support

Every stable release is accompanied by its respective documentation.

The documentation sources are available from within the git repository of the project and can be built using the provided Documentation Build Instructions.

You can also have a look at the available presentations.

For general questions, please have a look first at:

• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
• Discourse topics
• Presentations
• Outstanding Issues

If you are not able to find an answer there, please feel free to open a new Discourse topic or an Issue.

Known Users

• SXFEL-UF (Shanghai soft X-ray Free-Electron Laser User Facility)
• CERN BE-CEM "Distributed Oscilloscope" demonstrator
• FEMTO-ST Time & Frequency, Besancon, France (7/2021)

Furthermore, potential users include:

• LHC Instability Trigger Distribution
• OASIS White Rabbit Trigger Distribution CERN access only
• SHINE (Shanghai HIgh repetition rate XFEL aNd Extreme light facility)
• Fermilab for their Neutrino detection experiments
• ...

Status