A Prototype of the Timing Electronic System for the CALICE SDHCAL

The upgrade of the CALICE (Calorimeter for Linear Collider Experiment) Semi-Digital Hadronic Calorimeter (SDHCAL) to Timing-SDHCAL aims to leverage high-resolution time information by replacing the active layers made of Glass Resistive Plate Chamber (GRPC) detectors with Multi-gap Resistive Plate Chamber (MRPC) ones. This enhancement allows for the identification of neutral and charged particles and the separation of close-by showers. Consequently, a new electronic system is required to read out the MRPC signals. In this paper, we present a prototype of timing electronics based on the Petiroc2B ASIC, along with a Data Acquisition (DAQ) system built on the Zynq UltraScale+ SoC. The system demonstrates a satisfactory single-shot time resolution of 41.9 picoseconds. Additionally, the prototype has been tested with MRPC to detect cosmic rays. This prototype provides a feasible approach to constructing high-resolution timing electronic systems for MRPC and serves as a preparatory step for the Timing-SDHCAL.