Timing and triggering system for the European XFEL project - a double sized AMC board

The European X-Ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) [1] is a 3.4 km long linear accelerator that will enable new scientific research, by studying structures and events on the nanoscale. For such a complex machine to operate properly, precise timing and trigger information must be distributed throughout the entire accelerator. This information is used by the monitoring equipments of the accelerator and also by the experiment stations. The phase stability (jitter) of clock signals must be better than 5 ps (RMS), including drifts due to changes of propagation delay in fiber cables, caused by temperature variations. The system was developed in several steps, starting with an evaluation board to test key concepts, a single-size AMC prototype for μTCA system with two revisions and finally a double-size AMC board for μTCA system. The double-size AMC board is intended for the final system that incorporates all the functionality that different user groups have requested and all the experiences gained from the previous prototypes. To reduce overall system cost some parts were implemented on daughter-boards. For customization to different application the possibility to use rear-transition modules (RTM) has been added. This work will mainly focus on the new double-size AMC board, give an architectural overview and report some performance measurements.