Tip of the Week: Input Monitoring

Most designs feature input monitors. The basic functionality is an edge counter monitoring each input channel individually - if read out e.g. once per second one can easily display the rate of input pulses. Besides that there is a high-resolution mode available: One input channel can be selected and the counter be sampled with a given period, down to 100 ns per sample. A buffer stores up to 1000 samples that can be read out subsequently for detailed rate analysis, for example to check micro-structures of the spill or to see if hits close to each other deteriorate the detector performance.